Coachella Valley Green Dragon doesn’t have an estimated opening date yet, and the owners still have a couple regulatory hurdles to clear before they can welcome marijuana consumers. But they’re positioned to open the only public space within 400 miles where adults 21 and older will be able to legally consume cannabis in a social setting.

If that happens, Casey Bahr — who for 20-plus years has leased space for his Revive Wellness Center and Revive Salon & Spa in a portion of the same building coveted by Green Dragon — said he’ll be forced to relocate.

“We can’t subject our clients and patients to that kind of indoor pollution,” Bahr said, adding that he believes the city’s strict odor control requirements won’t be enough to prevent an offensive smell from reaching his customers.

It’s illegal to consume cannabis in public, a restriction included in the 2016 ballot measure that legalized recreational marijuana in California. That measure, Proposition 64, also gave landlords the right to regulate marijuana use on private property.

So, while a small number of hotels are permitting consumption and a few marijuana-themed festivals are held throughout the state, those two provisions can severely limit legal cannabis use for certain groups, including tourists and many renters.

One potential solution are cannabis lounges, which California cities can choose to permit. Though state law offers only a few hurdles to lounges — they can’t operate within 600 feet of schools, they can’t let people consume alcohol or tobacco in the same venue, and they have to keep all cannabis consumption out of public view — only San Francisco and Oakland have issued permits. West Hollywood and Cathedral City have said they plan to allow lounges, but they have yet to give the green light.

In December, Palm Springs voted to welcome standalone cannabis lounges. And on June 14, the city gave Coachella Valley Green Dragon a permit to open a lounge inside a portion of a building on Palm Canyon Drive, in a spot that used to be occupied by a hearing aid center, according to records from Veronica Goedhart, a paralegal with the city attorney’s office.

The plan, Goedhart said, is for the operators to have a dispensary on the first floor and a lounge on the second floor.

Neighbor opposes lounge

The space leased to Coachella Valley Green Dragon takes up about 25 percent of the building at 353 S. Palm Canyon Drive. The rest is occupied by Bahr’s medical spa and salon businesses.

A property manager for the building emailed Bahr in February to tell him that cannabis clients were interested in leasing the vacant space that shares a wall with his business, and she wanted to first know his thoughts. He wrote back that a marijuana business would have “a negative effect on any adjacent business and property values,” insisting they “should always be housed in a stand-alone building.” But Bahr says that was the last he heard of it until he was called for comment on this story.

Bahr personally supports medical marijuana rights. But he does not support recreational cannabis, saying he believes it will “degrade” society.

When it comes to the lounge, Bahr said smell is his main concern. A computer repair shop he frequents in town recently had a cannabis business move in next-door, and Bahr said the entire store “reeked” of marijuana.

“I think it ruins the building for occupancy for anybody else but a pot-based business.”

Palm Springs officials are “aware of the odor associated with cannabis lounges,” Goedhart said, and the city requires business owners to “include adequate measures that minimize nuisances to the immediate neighborhoods and community the detection of odor.” Detectable odors, she said, will be handled as a public nuisance, and that the city has the right to “pursue all administrative, civil and criminal remedies” if it becomes a problem.

Final approval still needed

The Coachella Valley Green Dragon project still needs city approval for “minor modifications” planned for the property, according to owner Manuel Semerdjian, who also owns the Green Dragon Caregivers dispensary in North Hollywood.

The project also needs a waiver from the city council, Goedhart said, since the dispensary and lounge won’t have a 500-foot buffer between them as required by city law. She couldn’t say when that hearing would take place.

With approval still pending, Semerdjian didn’t respond to further questions about the project, including queries about the possible conflict with the neighboring spa

Palm Springs has received five more applications from would-be cannabis lounge operators, Goedhart said. They’re all in various stages of the approval process.

The city didn’t place a cap on the number of lounges they might permit. But they did include a rule that says there can’t be more than three facilities within 3,000 feet of each other, a buffer they hope will prevent oversaturation.

Since four of the six lounge applications they’ve received are for properties along Palm Canyon Drive, Goedhart said that saturation rule may come into play.

Lounges coming to two more cities

Nearby Cathedral City approved lounges in February, allowing licensed shop owners to apply for permits to add social-use spaces. But four months later, the city still hasn’t made those applications available.

Nicholas Hughes, owner of Cathedral City Care Collective North, said he’s anxious to get a permit to convert a portion of his shop on Cathedral Canyon Drive into a lounge.

Hughes hopes to use the lounge as a way for staff to educate people about how to safely use the wide range of cannabis products now legal in California. He hopes to help guests have some fun in the space, too, using it to host events such as bachelor parties.

West Hollywood heard from a flood of aspiring lounge owners when the city opened its application period, with roughly 100 applications submitted before the window closed May 31, according to Jackie Rocco, who oversees the program as West Hollywood’s manager of business development.

Those applicants are competing for 16 standalone lounge licenses. That includes eight permits for lounges that will let people smoke, vape or eat marijuana products, and eight others for lounges that will only let people eat cannabis-infused edibles. Eighty percent of applications were for smoking lounges, Rocco said.

Given the number applications they received, Rocco said she expects the screening process to continue through September. Aspiring lounge owners then will be asked to go through the planning application process, plus get a business license from the city and a cannabis license from the state.

Depending on the complexity of the proposed projects, Rocco said the first cannabis lounge in West Hollywood could open in spring of 2019.

A Riverside County couple who leased a San Ysidro storefront to an illegal marijuana dispensary was ordered to pay $388,000 in civil penalties to the city of San Diego this week, city officials said.

Quirino and Bertha Gutierrez, who live in Menifee, were ordered to pay the equivalent of $1,000 a day for each of the 388 days the pot shop operated.

The couple own property on West San Ysidro Boulevard in a zone where marijuana dispenaries may operate but they never obtained a permit for the business, Chief Deputy City Attorney Mike Giorgino said in a statement.

A different marijuana dispensary operating at the property was closed in late November 2015.

In August 2016, the court entered a default judgment against the couple, imposing $12,399 in penalties and costs and barring them from leasing their property to any marijuana-related business without proper permits.

Giorgino said the city learned in March 2016 that another business was operating at the location and advertising marijuana products on the internet. The city filed a lawsuit in May.

A judge issued a temporary restraining order in September and a preliminary injunction in October.

The dispensary, known as the Luxury Care Healing Center, continued to operate — in violation of the court’s orders — and was raided in February 2017. Police seized about 10 pounds of marijuana, $3,484 in cash, edible marijuana products and concentrated products.

A default judgment of $425,000 was set aside after the couple’s former attorney admitted fault in failing to answer the complaint.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Randa Trapp granted the city’s motion for summary judgment in early June and signed the final judgment Tuesday. The judgment requires the couple to pay $388,000 in civil penalties and prohibits them from operating or maintaining a marijuana-related business on the property without a conditional use permit.

The dispensary’s owner, Ziad Putrus, also was ordered to pay $100,000 in civil penalties.

“Landlords of illegal dispensaries are no less culpable than their tenants, and we prosecute them with equal vigor,” City Attorney Mara Elliott said in a release. “If you are leasing your property to an unpermitted pot shop, we will hold you accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

© 2018 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit The San Diego Union-Tribune at www.sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The drink, named Hi-Fi Hops, only will be available at licensed cannabis dispensaries in California starting July 30. It will come in two varieties, including one containing 10 mg of THC, a principal psychoactive chemical in marijuana. The other will have 5 mg of THC and 5 mg of cannabidiol, or CBD, a cannabis compound used to treat pain. The drinks do not contain alcohol.

The product comes on the on heels of last year’s Lagunitas SuperCritical Ale, which contained aromatic compounds of essential oils extracted from marijuana plants but had no THC in the beer. Both drinks were produced with Santa Rosa-based CannaCraft Inc., a cannabis-extract manufacturing facility led by William Silver, former dean of Sonoma State University’s business school.

Lagunitas was founded in 1993 by Tony Magee, an avid cannabis user whose marketing long promoted a stoner-friendly culture. So the push into the cannabis drinks market is not a surprising for one of the nation’s largest craft brewers, now wholly owned by Heineken International.

It also not the first or largest foray by alcohol-beverage makers into the expanding cannabis market.

Wine giant Constellation Brands Inc. which owns Clos du Bois in Geyserville, Simi Winery in Healdsburg and Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa, took a 10 percent stake in a Canadian medicinal cannabis provider in October, gaining more insight into the sector.

“Hi-Fi is not the first chapter in the love affair between cannabis and Lagunitas, but it is one of the most exciting,” Lagunitas CEO Maria Stipp said in a statement. “The idea of having a no-calorie beverage infused with cannabis seemed like a perfect next step in our product innovation, and a natural way to marry our past with our future.”

Most beverage producers so far have steered clear of cannabis, especially over concern such blends could jeopardize their federal license to make beer, wine, or spirits because marijuana still is illegal under federal law.

But the lure of a new market is strong and many are exploring ways to enter the sector, valued at up to $7 billion California.

“I think alcohol industry is very much paying attention to cannabis and finding out ways to get involved,” said Rebecca Stamey-White, an attorney who represents alcohol beverage producers who want to enter the market. “Most folks are avoiding products containing alcohol and finding ways to leverage their brand in cannabis.”

Lagunitas found a way around potential legal snags by brewing the hop-flavored water at its Petaluma facility. It was then trucked it over to CannaCraft, where the THC and CBD were added and then canned. CannaCraft will use its own distribution network in California to deliver the product to as many as 250 dispensaries in the state.

To comply with a new child-safety law, CannaCraft worked with its vendor to design an aluminum can that would require two maneuvers to open instead of the traditional pop-top, said spokeswoman Kial Long.

Lagunitas said the new drinks will be full of hops, like its beers. But they’ll also feature fruit aromas, such as grapefruit, and floral fragrances, including lavender.

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©2018 The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.)

Visit The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.) at www.pressdemocrat.com

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The current ban on medicinal marijuana dispensaries will remain in place in Kern County for the time being after the Kern County Board of Supervisors took no action on a proposal that could have led to the establishment of seven legal medicinal dispensaries throughout the county at a meeting Tuesday.

Citing the changing nature of the medicinal marijuana industry in the county, all supervisors – excluding Leticia Perez, who was absent – said they did not support the seven-dispensary plan, brought to the board by the Health and Social Services Subcommittee, which is comprised of Chairman Mike Maggard and Supervisor Mick Gleason as well as employees from the County Administrative Office.

The lack of action at Tuesday’s meeting could result in the closure of 31 Kern County medicinal dispensaries that are currently grandfathered into the law.

The licenses for those businesses are set expire Nov. 24.

If ballot initiatives fail, or the board does not amend the current ordinance, those businesses will be forced to close up shop.

At the meeting, numerous medicinal marijuana organizations showed up to state their case.

Their comments fell on some deaf ears.

“I don’t trust this industry,” Supervisor Mick Gleason said after public comments. “I’ve heard all of you talk. I don’t care for many of the things I hear. I don’t believe in the integrity of the system. I believe there are patients in need, and I believe marijuana can deliver a quality medicine, but I don’t believe that the industry is mature enough to deal with it without the fraud I see rampant in the industry.”

The proposal brought to the board would have allowed four of the seven shops to be located in the valley portion of Kern County, with the remaining three shops to be placed in eastern Kern.

The measure was meant to allow patients access to medical marijuana after the licenses for the 31 shops expire.

During public comments, numerous medicinal marijuana dispensary owners brought forward concerns that the seven-shop plan would create a de facto monopoly for a few businesses within the county.

Any businesses not lucky enough to obtain one of the seven licenses would have been unable to operate under the plan, with the seven licensed shops taking in all the profit.

The board has the option of reviewing the ban on medicinal marijuana facilities at a later date, but for the moment, the status quo will remain.

“Our concern is not who delivers or dispenses or makes available to the public medicinal marijuana, but that it be made available,” said Chairman Mike Maggard.

He said that given the option of delivery, as well as the possibility that cities within the county could legalize medicinal marijuana distribution, he did not support the seven-shop plan.

A ballot initiative for the City of Bakersfield will ask voters to lift the ban on medicinal marijuana dispensaries this November.

The cities of Arvin and California City are considering lifting the ban on adult use and medicinal marijuana dispensaries.

Multiple ballot initiatives are circulating the community to lift the county’s ban on medicinal marijuana dispensaries, with one initiative already being vetted by the county.

“I think that introduces a lot of things that we should consider before we move forward,” said Supervisor Zack Scrivner.

Those hoping for some kind of new direction for the future of medicinal marijuana in Kern County will just have to wait and see. For the moment, the ban remains.

© 2018 The Bakersfield Californian (Bakersfield, Calif.). Visit The Bakersfield Californian at www.bakersfield.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.