The marijuana future we always wanted is here, and is akin to buying cosmetics at a classy place like Nordstrom: We can now choose from a selection of purveyors with showcases, product displays, and illuminated magnifying lenses for examining cannabis. By we, I mean people like me — epicures who’ve enjoyed pot for decades, and horrified how the war on drugs heralded a new Jim Crow — who waited for the rest of society to come to its senses.
I never bothered meeting a so-called doctor to obtain a medical marijuana card, and never saw the sense in scoring on Haight Street either. Sustaining the herbal habit called for the somewhat surreptitious stocking up of a few grams at a time, from friends who have a friend who knows a friend who deals or grows. As the green curtain lifted in California early this year, these old hoops to jump through have just gone away.
With the broader legal, regulatory, and business issues more or less sorted out, San Francisco finds itself with roughly two dozen locations that sell to the recreational consumer. Because smoking in public remains verboten, a select few of these feature lounges, a space where you can sample the wares in relative peace.
We still need to see what local lounges want to be. Let’s first consider Barbary Coast (952 Mission near 5th), where you queue twice, first to be allowed in by way of driver’s license scan, and then to check out the merchandise. The receptionist and I chat about information security, and he assures me that the shop’s data are stored locally and not in the Internet cloud. Clearly that’s a good idea.
Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer prerolls for simplicity and portability. (Used cars are now preowned vehicles, and joints are now known as prerolls. Just go with it.) I don’t smoke enough to buy bud in bulk, and I don’t get the vaping thing. I’m suspicious of the oil, glycerin, or whatever it is that holds the cannabis in suspension for vapes. (Coconut oil sounds OK, vegetable glycerin might be fine, but polyethylene glycol or propylene glycol? Hard pass.) Vape pens also need to be recharged eventually, and who needs one more frigging thing to plug in anyway?
Barbary Coast was short on hybrid prerolls on the day I drop in. The first budtender who tends to my needs brings over the wrong product, a mini-Altoids-like metal tin of hash-infused joints. Talking to a second staffer, I ascertain I can buy flower product by the gram, like in old Amsterdam. Progress! (Personal fave: De Tweede Kamer, which has 103 TripAdvisor reviews.)
Pot bought: 1 gram of Godzilla Glue (hybrid strain; bright, great-looking green buds)
Amount paid: $15
My purchase is in large part a pretext to visit the smoking lounge. Again I have to check in with a host and give up my ID for supplies like the smoking device and lighter, along with a beeper/timer for checking out. (Equipment note: The new pot reality means all the accoutrements are there for you.) I first consider trying a bong (superannuated but serves its purpose), when the staff mentions the option of bubblers. What’s a bubbler, I ask. Asked and answered: It’s a smaller, stylish, one-piece bong, something similar to this one, along with an alcohol wipey in a single envelope to sanitize the mouthpiece. Appreciated! (Product design in the cannabis category is seeing a high degree of sophistication; check out this Wired piece on some high-end smoking gear.)
So off I go into a back booth with a bubbler, beeper/timer, lighter, and baggie of buds. Between puffs, I take in the speakeasy-themed room, which is adorned with large flat-panel screens. Tom Hanks is singing “Memories” to his movie mom on one screen while Jamie Lee Curtis twerks in a thong on another. Both are on mute; for our aural enjoyment, “Highway to Hell” and other AC/DC tracks are being piped in.
What’s the point of muted lighting and romantic, red vinyl booths when you can’t avoid cringeworthy ’80s flicks playing over a nihilistic rock soundtrack? The voice of Bon Scott, who choked on his own vomit in a car and died, makes the atmosphere even more grotesque. If there ever was a case for overeducated culture snobs such as myself to complain, well, this is it.
I wonder whether Barbary Coast prefers that its customers not get too comfortable, since there’s a 30-minute limit on the lounge (ergo the beeper/timer). Heading out, I mutter to the lounge staff something to the effect of “the AC/DC.” The handsome, apparently always-positive host says “Yeah! We’ll play it!” I reply: ”Um, you’ve already done that.”
So yeah, why the AC/DC? Maybe a little jazz, I suggest. The other staffer, attractive as well, says that sometimes they play Miles or Coltrane to set the evening mood. OK, I nod. “The point is you got high and had fun!” she adds. At least I have no quibble with the former. I say my goodbyes. Was there 20 minutes at most. (I’ve offered some totally reasonable and approachable suggestions for pot-lounge audio and video at the bottom of the post.)
Kvetching like this might seem unfair. But in this short period of time, some places are doing it right. Harvest (4811 Geary Blvd. near Park Presidio, with another location near Bernal Heights) is one example. (It also got a head start, having opened in 2016 as a members-only medical pot club.) For starters, Harvest offers you a basket. Walk around, check out the merchandise, and feel free to get your stoner fingers on anything except the prerolls and flowers. Looking to get into those? A staff member is standing by to help. Service is a theme; later I notice two co-workers sharing a chuckle as they make their rounds. Everyone seems to enjoy being here.
Pot bought: 1 0.5-gram preroll of Purple Rain (hybrid strain) and 1 pack of 7 prerolls by Lowell Smokes (hybrid strain; a “curated mixture”)
Amount paid: $9.20 for the Purple Rain and $49.76 for the Lowell Smokes
(Lowell Smokes says it grows “with only ORGANIC fertilizer” in large caps. It also says it never uses synthetic pesticides, pays its farmers a proper living wage, and uses natural materials from seed to sale. If there is any sensibility that Lowell has missed, let me know in the comments.)
After paying (I used cash for all the transactions, but it’s not always necessary), I asked to visit the lounge. The staffer said of course, and swung open the door in the back. The west wall looks like plain, troweled concrete. The east wall has a hardwood parquet pattern. The north wall has a built-in cabinet with lots of little drawers to stash lighters and other items, and a shelf aglow with a clear glass lamp. There’s also a framed clipping from an SF Chronicle feature about the lounge, and a small clock set in what looks like a cement block. A brown leather couch faced two lean-back armchairs. No televisions!
The staff hooks me up with a lighter, matches, and a cool drink of water in a real glass. I set up station at a thick banquette with pillows and fuzzy throws under the parquet wall, behind a row of marble-topped café tables. A bespectacled man wearing a navy-blue sweater over a white collared shirt comes by to swap out my heavy glass ashtray for a clean one.
This is kung fu out of the Danny Meyer hospitality playbook — creating an experience in a space so the customer can’t wait to come back. But why would you want to leave in the first place? Harvest passes the smell test with flying colors; the website touts the lounge’s “state-of-the-art filtration.” Also the bathroom here is cleaner than the one in your house.
The dynamic changes as other guests arrive. A couple in the back corner is a little excited: The husky guy, wearing a knit cap and Giants jacket, speaks to his partner just above a hoarse whisper. “This is so cool!” she announces, not loudly. She’s right, it’s a cool room and a co-working space — laptops and stainless-steel water bottles out, elbows propping up bearded chins. The dandy dude who cleared my ashtray is at a long table, pointing at his computer screen with one hand while writing in a notebook with the other. A woman gently pulls at the same strands of her hair while reviewing a document.
Once I become aware of the music — “Be That Easy” by Sade — right then everything clicks: the Purple Rain, the “Mad Men”-ish room decor, the filtered air and clean ashtray, the song’s swaying tempo, doubled-up vocals, and drum brushwork. I start taking playlist notes and notice that the mix master is among the guys with laptops at the long table with the dandy ashtray guy. I don’t know whether they’re employees, customers, or consultants, but I hear them talking about the tunes. In the middle of Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love,” there is a genre shift to what sounds like alt/country, and Shazam registers it as “Poor House” by the Traveling Wilburys. Then comes “Revolution 1” from the Beatles’ White Album. Now it’s “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” the riff for which is “supernatural Delta blues by way of swinging London,” according to Rolling Stone. (Right away I searched online and saw “JJF” peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard chart.) Pivot to Tom Petty’s “Refugee.” Onto Roy Orbison’s “You Got It,” and the Traveling theme of the playlist is established … and soon after we’re back to some of that quiet storm: a guitar instrumental version of Roberta Flack’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love.” By the time I glance over at the small clock with no numerals in the cementy block, maybe an hour has passed, maybe less. I’m enjoying myself, and that’s the point.
The bittersweet twist is that, like lovemaking, the lounging has to end. There are commitments and responsibilities to attend to, and while it’s fun lighting up, soaking in sounds, and San Francisco people-watching, at Harvest you can’t help feeling that others there are getting lots more done.
My debut purchase under the new scheme did not happen in a comfy lounge, and was not an event planned or laid out in advance, even though it’s a milestone I’ve been looking forward to for years. Almost on a whim while I was walking uptown on Mission Street six weeks ago, I popped into Shambhala (2441 Mission near 20th), where there’s no sign-in, membership, or ID scan required, just a nod to the security guys in the foyer and you’re good to shop.
A budtender greeted me and walked me through the layout, asked about my personal preferences, and then pointed out a couple of hybrids. Although I’m wary of indica strains because of anxiety rebound in the days after smoking, he recommended GG #4, which he said he was going to sample himself right after work. (Remember the guys at hi-fi stores, who showed you a set of speakers and tried to close by saying “I have a pair of these at home myself”? Like that, but actually genuine.) Sold, I said. I’ve had greater trouble sorting through the ice cream, sorbet, and gelato selections at Whole Foods.
Pot bought: 2 packs of Lola Lola prerolls: Lemon Banana Sherbert (hybrid strain; package says it “Reduces anxiety and promotes focus”) and GG #4 (indica-dominant hybrid strain; “Elevates mood and alleviates stress”)
Amount paid: $15 per pack of three prerolls
The packs were sealed up in a white plastic pouch (mandatory for these types of goods, so save yours for next time), I handed over my money, and that was it. It couldn’t have been a more simple and straightforward transaction, and took all of 10 minutes.
I can attest the Lemon Banana Sherbert worked exactly as advertised; the GG #4, not so much. Your mileage will vary, and this highlights the new challenges of cannabis retail — not potential legal terror, not shadowy self-debasement from procuring or partaking. It’s working out the product mix, personal preferences, the store experience, the soundtrack, and decor, whether you’re making a quick purchase or having a smoke and a sit. Where the lounges and stores go from here is navigating the granular vagaries of consumerist trial and error.
Follow Anthony Lazarus on Twitter: @Sr_Lazarus
Media to enhance lounge experience: Why show TV movies interrupted by ads with the sound off when there are nature shows, myriad programs featuring aerial shots of animals, landscapes, underwater habitats? Then there are Bogart and Bacall films, Bob Ross, Koyaanisqatsi. The fireplace stream is acceptable because why not.
Also here are totally reasonable and approachable musical suggestions: any Blue Note saxophonist from the postwar period, Kings of Convenience, Marisa Monte, Stevie Wonder’s Songs In the Key of Life. If you must Pink Floyd, then Pink Floyd’s Meddle, please. Bonus: If streaming’s the thing, behold my totally accessible, reasonable, and approachable streams: Acoustic Café or Acoustic FM (on iTunes), KCRW’s Eclectic 24, Radio Gladys Palmera.