Pacific Paradise. The storefront to its right will be the lounge. File photo from 2019.


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We’re about to hit peak Arcata.

Next week, the city’s planning commission will consider approving an application from the owners of Pacific Paradise, the longtime headshop and dispensary, who are requesting permission to open a weed-smoking lounge next to their store, on the corner of H and 11th streets. (The official, rather bloodless term, is an “on-site cannabis consumption lounge.”)

Back in April, the city council decided to change the city’s rules regulating “on-site consumption” after being asked to by a couple business owners. It’s legal to grow, sell, and manufacture cannabis products in Arcata, and apparently an update to the Land Use Code created a “pathway” for indoor weed smoking several years ago, according to a staff report from then, but didn’t follow it until requested. 

The lounges have to be enclosed and authorized to operate by city hall. Only people aged 21 and up can use them; they can’t drink or use any other drugs; they can’t operate between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.; if enough people complain about the smell, the business has to quit operating until they find a solution; and if someone is “visibly intoxicated,” employees aren’t allowed to sell them any weed. Pacific Paradise will also need to get a state consumption license before opening the lounge.

Eureka legalized them in 2019; there’s currently one operating. Another folded last year.

Jenn Henson, a partial owner of Pacific Paradise, was ebullient about the project when the Outpost reached her by phone earlier today. “I don’t go out because anytime you go out, there’s just drunks everywhere,” she said. “What a great opportunity to be able to take on some music, take on a comedy night, take on something like that, in an environment where it’s just cannabis use and no alcohol. Sign me up. Those are my people.”

She envisions a space for people with nowhere to safely smoke can enjoy themselves with friends, opening up access to everyone. She shared an anecdote: years ago, an Arcatan she knew, a man she described as a hard-working, loving father, was evicted from his apartment after getting caught smoking on his deck. The story stuck with her, and she decided she would do her best to provide a space for imbibing without fear.

It’ll also simplify operations at the business; with a consumption license, employees will be able to open sealed cannabis products in the store, something they’re currently banned from doing. If an old person wants help opening up a container of edibles, they’re unable to assist them; if a shipment from a grower arrives open, it has to be destroyed on camera, the footage then sent to the state.  

The lounge will be accessible from within Pacific Paradise, or from the street. Henson plans to bring in couches and construct a dab bar, perhaps give Cal Poly students a place to do homework while they get ripped. They’ll also have to add a stringent ventilation system. Henson’s unsure when the lounge will open.

Store hours will be from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. The price of entrance will be included with a purchase from the dispensary.

Henson said the lounge was unlikely to be a big money-maker, but their goal of increasing access to safe places to smoke would be worth the investment. Curious cannabis-sampling tourists could be a boon too, Henson hopes, similar to Napa wine-tasting trips. But, ultimately, she wants it to be a great place to hang out downtown.

“But I’m thinking, if I bring in some good comedy and some good musicians, or just fun things to do — who wouldn’t want to get high and play Pac-Man?” she asked. “They’re gonna be like, ‘There’s a Pac-Man game down there. Let’s go.’”