COLUMBUS, Ohio – Bars hosting 4/20 marijuana consumption celebrations on outdoor patios? Bars and restaurants can’t risk even thinking about it.
Despite 57% of Ohio voters casting ballots to legalize adult-use marijuana last year, the drug is still considered a controlled substance under federal law, which means it’s prohibited in bars and restaurants.
That’s according to a memo the Ohio Division of Liquor Control sent out late last year, shortly after the election, in which it reminded license holders of its administrative rule that prohibit the establishments from knowingly or willfully allowing the use of controlled substances on their premises.
READ MORE: Ohio becomes 24th state to legalize marijuana for recreational, adult use
Liquor permitholders can receive an administrative citation if caught. And state agents often go undercover to visit permitholders – as demonstrated during the pandemic, when many were cited for operating during hours that violated public health orders.
The rule has come with mixed reactions from bar and restaurant owners throughout the state. A Columbus pizzeria that had planned a January patio party to celebrate newly legal recreational marijuana had to change plans, telling patrons to imbibe at home because of the rule.
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While it’s now legal to partake in recreational marijuana and grow at home Ohio, dispensaries are not yet open to recreational customers. The state is working on rules for an adult-use program and sales could begin as soon as this summer. Meanwhile, adults aged 21 and older cannot be arrested for possessing up to 2.5 ounces of most forms of marijuana, and roughly 0.5 ounces of extract. They can grow up to six cannabis plants per person at home, or 12 per household if more than one adult lives there. The recreational law went into effect Dec. 7.
READ: Ohio’s first recreational marijuana dispensaries could be open in early-to-mid June, lawmaker says
Sam McNulty, co-owner at Market Garden Brewery in Ohio City, said that the decision of whether to allow marijuana consumption should be made by individual businesses.
“As a 21-year-old when I opened Café 101 on (Cleveland State University) campus, I was surprised by all the rules and regulations, not of all which made sense,” he said. “I guess a lot of governmental departments, they’re very conservative. The answer is usually, ‘No – what’s the question?’”
Throughout his career, McNulty said he has asked the state to modify numerous liquor laws, some of which dated back to prohibition – from 6% alcohol limit on microbrews to the days and times in which establishments could sell alcohol.
“I’m all for reducing as many of the rules and regulations in our life as possible,” he said. “And when I say that I mean, let’s focus on the rules and regulations that are important. Like requiring catalytic converters on cars was hugely important to cleaning up our air dramatically. I was part of the effort to ban smoking in bars, because it was a public health issue.”
But with the consumption of marijuana, he said, as long as the businesses prohibit indoor smoking, the state should not police bars and restaurants.
“When it comes to adults consuming marijuana if that’s what people choose to do in a safe way and do it in a way that’s not burdening others, I think, why not?” he said.
Columbus attorney Greg May, who represents marijuana and hemp clients, said that marijuana is already being consumed at bars and restaurants. Visit any city’s nightlife district or enter a concert venue, and people will smell it, May said.
There’s little chance police or the state will catch someone in the act of popping an edible.
“People are being discrete,” May said. “The devices people have now, there are little glass pipes for five or six tokes, with a cap on it, and they can fit it in their pocket.”
Time will tell how public consumption of marijuana will change with adult-use – and whether people will even notice it, May said.
“Well see. It’ll be an interesting summer. We’ll start having sales around July 4,” he said, alluding to the recently floated potential for sales to begin quickly after the state starts taking applications for dispensary licenses. “We’ll find a lot of these things out for the first time – just how bad it’s going to get. Or maybe how good. It’s not like they just invented weed.”
Other Northeast Ohio bar and restaurant owners, such as Tony George, are fine with the marijuana prohibition in establishments. George’s family received five medical dispensary licenses in 2017, he said, as GTI Ohio, which operate under the name RISE dispensaries.
“We’re going to follow the rules that the state puts in place,” George said. “So I think they need to be consistent. I think there needs to be a set of rules put in place, just like there’s liquor laws, and everybody has to follow those laws.”
Laura Hancock covers state government and politics for The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com.