PREVIOUSLY

• A SECOND Arcata Weed Lounge? The City’s Planning Commission Will Think It Over Tomorrow

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It was a pipe dream four years ago, but last night the Arcata Planning Commission unanimously granted another dispensary permission to open a weed-smoking lounge. 

James and Amy Alves, the owners of Humboldt’s Premium, had wanted to allow people to smoke at their business when it opened in 2022, but there wasn’t a mechanism in the city’s code that allowed it. Instead, they opted to let customers hang out on their patio; they were free to eat edibles and drink THC seltzers instead. James Alves told the Outpost earlier this week that it got “spotty” use, mostly from the lunchtime crowd who want a place to hang outside. Not all of them get high.

Earlier this year, the rules changed: Arcata’s city council voted to legalize on–site smoking in April, and the Alves decided they’d ask the city again for permission to let their customers smoke. They applied to amend their original permit in July. According to the staff report, they spent several months filing paperwork that’d prove smoke from the patio wouldn’t drift into any nearby apartments, the street or the adjacent Jolly Giant Creek. They cited research that indicates the prevailing northwest winds around the business will push the cannabis stank away from any homes. (Also, they noted, it’s already hard to avoid gas fumes from nearby Highway 255.)

The planning commission spent a few months fishing for the opinions of other local and state agencies; the dispensary is subject to the rules of several of them. Its location makes it a headache to regulate. It’s at the corner of I Street and Samoa Boulevard, next to the Jolly Giant Creek, in the Coastal Zone. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife said they were fine with it. The creek’s proximity gave the California Coastal Commission’s opinion some weight, but its staff said late last month they weren’t concerned, as long as the business provided noncombustible ash trays and removed all of the litter within 100 feet of the patio every day.

This is the second smoking lounge in two sessions the commission has approved. Last month, it allowed dispensary Pacific Paradise to open one. Although that lounge is indoors, the one at Humboldt’s Premium has to abide by the same rules. If passers-by or nearby residents complain that they can smell weed or see smoke, or if employees claim that they’re not being adequately protected, the city can investigate. 

The commissioners were satisfied with the Alves’ suggestions to make that less likely. They’ll install at least one outdoor air-scrubber, they said, which can clean up to 1,400 square feet. And getting to the creek from the patio will be difficult because it’s walled off. Senior Planner Delo Freitas said she’d never had to enforce any of the city’s rules about smoke leaking out of businesses during the seven years she’s worked for Arcata; loud noises and outdoor lighting are generally more impactful, she said. Commissioner Peter Lehman — historically a smoke skeptic — said he didn’t think it would be “the end of the world, by any means,” if people nearby saw smoke drifting from the patio.

“We feel this project is a reasonable expansion of what has already been approved on the site,” Freitas said. “We are definitely interested in supporting our local businesses.”

Only products bought at the dispensary will be OK to use on-site. Like Pacific Paradise’s lounge, smokers would have to enter the patio through the business and would be banned from smoking tobacco or drinking. The Humboldt’s Premium lounge, however, will be mellower than the competition, James told the Outpost. He compared the experience to eating outside at a restaurant — “a nice, peaceful place to hang out,” he said.

He told the commission he was glad to give people a “clean and safe” place to smoke weed. When the dispensary opened, there were three others within a few blocks. James said he constantly found litter from people smoking outside, and he thought stopping that might require giving them a private, legal area. Commissioner Abigail Strickland agreed; maybe smokers next to the bar across the street could use the Humboldt’s Premium patio instead, she said. 

“Instead of complaints, you’re actually gonna get told ‘Good job’ for doing this,” James told the commission. “Allowing [it] somewhere besides the Plaza or somewhere where you’re not supposed to be doing it.”