South Denver Pot Lounge, Tour Service Plans to Open by 4/20

Colorado Cannabis Tours, a marijuana-friendly tour service, class provider and hangout space, should be up and running by 4/20, according to owner Michael Eymer.

Eymer plans to operate two pot-friendly tour buses out of his building at 1904 South Cherokee Street, where he will also allow marijuana use on the back patio. If he finishes building renovations before the cold weather ends, Eymer will put up a tent with propane heaters where visitors can smoke, dab and vape cannabis products.

"I just have some construction and mechanical work to do on the building," he says. "I'll get the building done by 4/20. I'm confident on that."

A neighborhood hearing and zoning approval will likely be required before Colorado Cannabis Tours receives a marijuana hospitality permit for outdoor patio consumption, according to the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses, but Eymer says that he believes the model is "fully approved."

Eymer also has mobile marijuana hospitality applications pending with Excise and Licenses. If they are approved, he anticipates a month-long turnaround to outfit his buses with proper air filtration, camera and GPA surveillance. Fitting out the indoor portion of his building with approved HVAC equipment to permit smoking inside may take more time, however.

More than ten years after recreational marijuana was legalized in Colorado, permitted spaces allowing indoor marijuana consumption are hard to find in Denver. Only one licensed marijuana lounge is currently operating in the city, and that establishment only allows electronic vaping indoors.

The Patterson Inn was approved for indoor marijuana smoking last March, but the Capitol Hill hotel is still renovating an indoor parlor to meet city codes. Tetra Lounge, another marijuana-friendly space in Denver, was approved for local hospitality nearly a year ago (and both Mayor Michael Hancock and Governor Jared Polis showed up at a celebration to mark that approval), but still hasn't received its official permit. According to Tetra's owner, building renovations and installing an approved HVAC system have held up the opening.

"They're incredibly expensive and could be too cost-burdensome to run in the winter," Eymer says of HVAC systems, which is why he's now pursuing an outdoor consumption area.

"You have to heat that air as it goes inside the building, but I'm going to keep trying to get that done," he adds. "By 4/20, though, we anticipate the lounge license with edibles consumption inside and smoking in our outdoor tent area. By then I should have both [the lounge and mobile] permits."

After nearly a decade of operating under a state law that allowed pot use in privately zoned properties and in the back of private, registered limousines or buses, Colorado Cannabis Tours opted to pursue applying for official marijuana hospitality licenses with the City of Denver earlier this year. Bus riders haven't been allowed to consume marijuana in Denver city limits since 2018, Eymer says, when the Denver Police Department began cracking down on unlicensed mobile marijuana lounges.

Colorado Cannabis Tours continued taking customers on pot-friendly trips to dispensaries, marijuana cultivations, extraction facilities, hemp farms and breweries outside the city, and also hosted karaoke, painting and cooking classes at the company's former headquarters in unincorporated Adams County. As he applies for Denver permits, Eymer says that he's replaced marijuana consumption with hemp products, but wants to return to marijuana-friendly versions of his tours and classes as soon as possible.

Denver's marijuana hospitality program didn't permit mobile licenses until 2021, after the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division created a licensing program at the state level. Eymer secured his MED establishment and mobile hospitality permits last year, and subsequently applied for mobile and establishment marijuana hospitality permits.

Colorado Cannabis Tours' original establishment plan was approved in September, but Eymer withdrew that application and re-submitted after deciding to pursue the outdoor consumption model.

"Once you take away the HVAC requirement," he points out, "you're kind of in blue sky territory."