San Francisco finally made some steps last month toward embracing the area’s cannabis culture by passing a law to allow Amsterdam-style cannabis cafes to open up in the city.
“Today, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors gave final approval to legislation authored by Board President Rafael Mandelman that enables San Francisco’s licensed cannabis retailers to prepare and serve food and non-alcoholic beverages for consumption alongside cannabis on their premises, and creates a new cannabis cafe permit to support innovative hospitality-focused cannabis businesses,” states the press release after the mayor signed off on the bill.
SF-based cannabis journalist and author David Downs hailed the decision. “Tourism is a key part of San Francisco’s economy, and that includes counter-culture tourism,” he said. “San Francisco has the most advanced legal cannabis offerings and experiences in the world.”
According to Downs, the bill’s passage will kick off a year-long tourism push to attract more people from around the world. That push includes tourism maps featuring consumption lounges and dispensaries, an events calendar, museum events, and cannabis festivals.
“San Francisco has consistently pioneered groundbreaking cannabis tourism, offering safe consumption lounges alongside world-class, legal California products,” said Bram Goodwin of the SF Brownie Mary Democratic Club. “With this new legislation, we look forward to welcoming global visitors to our latest immersive experience—Cannabis Cafes that bring together cannabis, dining, and entertainment under one roof.
“Much like our iconic cable cars, San Francisco’s cannabis tourism is now officially on track.”
As a longtime cannabnis journalist and advocate myself, my first response like many of us was, “It is about damn time.” I reached out to some of the cannabis companies for a reaction.
“Having served on San Francisco’s Cannabis Oversight Committee and now operating a cannabis brand serving retailers across California, I’ve seen how much thoughtful collaboration improves policy,” said Ali Jamalian, owner of Sunset Connect. “My hope is that implementation includes meaningful dialogue with the operators, advocates, and community members who’ve spent years building this industry, while ensuring cannabis cafés complement—not cannibalize—the existing lounges that invested so much to open.”
I couldn’t agree more. Now that this law has passed, let’s do a better job of figuring it out than we did when we accepted a lot of junk along with Prop 64 legalizing recreational cannabis. Back then, the argument was “Let’s get this passed, and then we can change it along the way.”
Well what happened was a whole lot of fees and taxes that looked and were more punitive than helpful. Not a lot changed; the city never really embraced the cannabis industry and treated us somewhat similar to how the Wicked Stepmother treated Cinderella in the fairytale.
The Green Wave some hoped for never really happened. Maybe a green tidal pool at best.
Now there is hope again that some of those wrongs are about to be righted, and the city will embrace a potential multi-million industry.
Interestingly, everyone else I reached out to was not as full of hope and joy as the press releases sounded.
“I don’t think this measure is as easy as it sounds. If the single serve component is in play, I’m not sure how well that would work,” said one dispensary manager. I pressed on that, and he said it was his understanding that the new cafes will be only selling single items that must be consumed during that visit. So you wouldn’t be able to walk out with any items or buy multi-packs.
Interesting thought. So these cafes will have to serve single joints of varying size depending on how long you’ve got, single serving sodas and edibles, no eighths or quarters unless you plan on really blazing out. (Of course, a nice dab bar could be the star of the show!) There’s obviously still a lot to work out and cannabis culture will have to change to adapt.
Other people I talked to said it was good the bill passed, but they will wait and see what happens before commenting. That makes sense too, coming from a community that has been let down by the government many times.
Just to show you how much they don’t trust Johnny Law, according to the California Department of Cannabis Control, of the 3.8 million pounds of cannabis consumed in 2024, 62% was sold outside of the dispensary system from unlicensed sources.
I started producing entertainment in the cannabis community 10 years ago this year. I have seen it become legalized with great companies closing and fantastic new ones popping up. I have seen unfair taxation and ridiculous rules keeping these companies from being able to grow. So, I welcome this new bill hopefully representing real change. We have finally made that next step we talked about all those years ago.
It makes me think of cannabis activist Terrance Alan, sitting with me back in 2018 at Cafe Flore as he talked to me about turning Flore into a restaurant with cannabis options. “If you want cannabis salad dressing, you can order it, and the waiter will just walk across the street to the dispensary and get it for you,” I remember him saying. “We will have the best cannabis and CBD mocktails in town!”
He got me so enthused about working there to create this new cannabis nightlife and food culture that I was sure it would happen within months. He tried very hard, but sadly, it did not and Terrance passed on last year before it became a reality.
So let’s pick up that baton and continue the race. We carry with us all those who have strived before us like Terrance, Dennis Peron, Brownie Mary, Wayne Justmann, Eddie Lepp, Jack Herrer, and so many more. The finish line is still ahead of us, and we just got a few steps closer.
Personally, I am excited that there is a provision for cannabis entertainment since that is what I have been doing since PUFF at the Stud in 2016 all the way through to BONG-O BINGO at Mission Cannabis Club for the past three years. I can’t wait to create new programming for these cafes and am open for meetings!
Now it’s time to light up… soon in a cafe!
