Nevada Approves Cannabis Lounges & Social Use

The Nevada Senate on Monday approved a bill to allow social use cannabis lounges, Fox 13 reports. The proposal includes a Senate amendment allowing municipal governments to enact stricter rules than the state on lounges, if they choose.

The bill had already approved by the House and moves next to Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) who is expected to sign it.

Cannabis has been legal in Nevada since 2016; however, there were no social-use provisions in the voter-approved law and consumption outside of private residences remains illegal. In 2019, the Vegas Paiute Tribe opened the state’s first social-use lounge – the NuWu Cannabis Tasting Room – which was permitted because the tribe in a sovereign nation. However, the site was forced to close amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Assemblyman Steve Yeager (D), the bill’s primary sponsor, told KSNV that he hoped social-use businesses would open “toward the fall of this year” but that it wouldn’t surprise him if lounges didn’t start opening until “early next year.”

The measure also sets aside some social-use licenses for social equity applicants, which Nevada Dispensary Association Executive Director, Layke Martin, said would “increase diversity” in the state’s cannabis industry.

The bill requires the state Cannabis Compliance Board to regulate consumption lounges throughout state with different license types available for sites attached to dispensaries or to stand-alone sites selling single-use products for on-premises consumption. Alcohol would not be allowed to be served in any cannabis lounge and they would not be allowed in the state’s casinos.