Desert Hot Springs will allow customers to use cannabis at dispensaries
Desert Hot Springs is giving the green light for cannabis dispensaries to add areas where customers can consume their products on site.
On Tuesday, the city council unanimously voted to allow these consumption spaces in its commercial, industrial and mixed-use districts. This would allow dispensaries and other types of cannabis businesses — such as cultivators — to have tasting rooms or tourist and education components, said Christina Newsom, the city's compliance director.
This decision doesn't come as a surprise. The council voted early this year to have staff create ordinances that would enact a myriad of changes to the city's cannabis policies, including allowing consumption spaces and permanently lowering its cultivation tax. It approved reducing the cannabis cultivation tax by 43.6%, and has been working through carrying out other changes meant to help the struggling industry.
Desert Hot Springs has also long expressed interest in increasing "cannatourism," a way of using its cannabis industry to attract tourists.
It previously approved marijuana entertainment facilities, which are spaces that offer entertainment with the addition of a cannabis retail space and/or cannabis consumption area. Some examples of this would have been bowling alleys, theaters or concert venues.
But in a report to the city council, Newsom wrote that there had been "no demonstrated interest in cannabis entertainment or hotel facilities." This new ordinance would remove "cannabis entertainment" as a use type in the city's zoning rules and replace it with "cannabis consumption." Businesses will not be required to offer entertainment to have consumption spaces, although they can still choose to.
Councilmember Gary Gardner said the city has tried to find innovative ways to get consumption lounges over the years.
"I really like the idea of including our cultivators and our manufacturers so that we can have tasting rooms, things like that," Gardner said. "I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago that the best thing they can do is put in a tour like the wineries do."
There will be state and local regulations consumption spaces must follow to operate. For example, Newsom said state licensing requires businesses to have a retail license in order to have consumption spaces. This means consumption spaces will have retail components even if they're part of cultivation and manufacturing facilities.
Speaking of a consumption space being added to a business that's not a dispensary, she said: "It's not really a storefront retail in that way. It's more of kind of being able to sample the product and then purchase if you'd like."
Ani Gasparyan covers the western Coachella Valley cities of Desert Hot Springs and Cathedral City. Reach her at ani.gasparyan@desertsun.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Desert Hot Springs to allow cannabis use at some dispensaries
