When you picture a future where marijuana is legal for all adults, what do you see? Big, glossy retail stores? Driverless delivery vehicles? Drone drop offs? When you’re talking about the legal cannabis industry, the possibilities are almost limitless.
When Denver, Colorado resident Taylor Rosean and his friends pictured legal marijuana, one of the things they envisioned was a versatile game and entertainment space where cannabis could be consumed by the players and patrons. And then they went about making that vision a reality.
Rosean recently got word from authorities in Denver that his cannabis arcade – Vape and Play – got its license approved for social use. Progress has been slow when it comes to Denver’s social use program, which is why Rosean was only the second business owner to have a license for legal marijuana use on his premises approved.
Heavy restrictions and regulations have prevented the program from growing more quickly, and that wasn’t Rosean’s only problem. Investors were skittish about backing Vape and Play.
“I actually became business partners with my mother,” he told Colorado Public Radio. “This industry is very untested. It’s actually officially labeled as a pilot program, which means there’s some uncertainty. And we really believe that eventually it’ll be realized to a full-blown program, but trying to get that to an investor was a hard point, to say the least.”
After about a year running a gauntlet of 17 registered neighborhood organizations, government agencies, elected officials and enforcement agencies, Rosean, his mom and his other partners are getting ready for a fall grand opening.
As for making money, Rosean’s business plan includes a custom-made bar that will house built-in vaporizers – vaporizers that Rosean also plans on selling to others who may want to use them to start their own social use establishments.
Even if you’re not a huge fan of gaming, the idea of a cannabis arcade sounds like it would be a great time regardless. The promo below is short on details when it comes to exactly what else will populate the space besides the vape bar, but their website says Vape and Play will “offer everything from classic board games, coloring books and cards, to trivia night and yoga class, educational seminars and tasting events, even a comedian or musical group thrown into the mix.”
Hopefully this is just a start to an avalanche of stories over the next few years about similar businesses.
