Las Vegas Strip solves its most controversial problem
Sin City just held its biggest event ever and made a major change that should make the city even better for tourists.
The Las Vegas Strip smells like a 1980s Grateful Dead concert.
That's because Nevada legalized cannabis without providing any place to legally consume it. Under current law dispensaries are plentiful. They can't be located within 1,500 yards of a casino due to federal laws, but many of them have found spots just off the Strip.
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Planet 13, for example, has become a massive tourist attraction. It's a huge dispensary that also offers a coffee shop and a restaurant — neither of which incorporates marijuana in any way.
At the store, which sits about a mile off the Strip in an industrial/warehouse district, you can buy pretty much any cannabis product imaginable.
There's a wide range of smokeable products, everything from loose flower to prerolled joints, vapes, oils, edibles and beverages. It's a literal museum of cannabis with the company stocking a wide range of its own brands as well as pretty much every other marijuana product on the market.
You can buy anything at Planet 13 (PLNHF) , but you can't consume it on the premises. That's because Nevada allows people to smoke marijuana only in private residences. Hotel rooms do not count, even in rooms that allow for smoking cigarettes, and that has created a significant problem. Image source: Sandy Huffaker/Corbis via Getty Images
Smoking marijuana is not legal in most of Las Vegas
It's easy enough for people to skirt the law when it comes to consuming edibles. Nobody knows whether and when you do that in your hotel room, on the casino floor, or when walking down the Strip.
Smoking pot, however, is more obvious. Since it's not legal in your hotel room, that has pushed people into lighting up in parking lots, alleys and, somewhat discreetly, on the Las Vegas Strip.
Police won't arrest someone for lighting up a joint or even pipe or bong, but it's a nuisance that has made the Strip a less pleasant place to be. Not everyone wants to walk through clouds of smoke while they're also dodging panhandlers; women dressed as showgirls and shirtless men posing as police officers, both selling photos; and the countless other distractions on the Strip.
The current law has sort of forced that situation because there's no indoor place in Las Vegas where you can legally smoke pot.
That's about to change as the first legal cannabis consumption lounge has set its opening date.
Las Vegas adds legal cannabis consumption
In 2023, Nevada set a framework for legal cannabis consumption lounges. A number of dispensaries, including Planet 13, then began the process of getting approval to add a lounge — essentially an alcohol-free bar where people can legally smoke cannabis — to their properties.
Thrive Cannabis, a dispensary that describes its location as being on the Strip, when it's actually just off it, received approval on Feb. 15 to open a consumption lounge.
"Aptly named 'Smoke and Mirrors,' Thrive’s marijuana consumption space will offer guests a “curated selection of premium cannabis products” and THC-infused libations," Casino.org reported. "No alcohol is available, as booze and cannabis must stay apart under Nevada’s recreational-cannabis law."
The lounge will open later this month at 2975 S. Sammy Davis Drive on the north section of the Strip. Thrive's lounge will be adjacent to its dispensary, and it's within walking distance of Fontainebleau, Resorts World, Circus Circus, and the Wynn (WYNN) resorts.
It's also reasonably walkable from the Caesars (CZR) and MGM Resorts International (MGM) properties on the south and central sections of the Strip, albeit a much longer walk.
Planet 13 will follow later in 2024 with its own consumption lounge.
"The consumption lounge will have space for live entertainment and will be able to be booked for private events, brand launches, and other unique events," the company said in an email to TheStreet.
"The addition of the lounge is consistent with Planet 13’s stated strategy of continuing to build the Las Vegas SuperStore into a one-of-a-kind cannabis destination where consumers can watch cannabis products being made, can purchase products, and can consume all under one roof."
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