NATIONAL CITY, Calif.—The first cannabis lounge of San Diego County, Sessions by the Bay, is projected to open early 2024 in National City, according to Co-Founder Alex Scherer. The project was approved in late 2022 by the previous council with support of the Sycuan tribal council who own the land. It follows similar concepts developed in Los Angeles, however, the damaged history and reputation of cannabis is sparking concern before its arrival.
Sessions will replace the California College of San Diego building on Bay Marina Drive. Scherer said the name is to encapsulate the atmosphere, promising to create community and to provide a safe place for connoisseurs. The co-founder described the lounge’s amenities as being the one-stop shop of cannabis culture including food and beverage, art installations, music and more.
Scherer is a native San Diegan who has worked in the cannabis industry since 2009. Him and his business partner, Pearl Ayon, have navigated through “the wild west” of cannabis for 16 years, fighting through the frontier of the newly legalized industry. After local legislation led to the opening and closing of three of their cannabis storefronts, the pair now own and operate a marijuana dispensary called Sage & Fire in Lone Pine, California.
“We understood the need for these regulations and almost the over regulation of [cannabis businesses] because it is very polarizing and there are a lot of different risks and concerns that are not well studied or understood,” Scherer said.
The most recent government action was when President Biden issued federal pardons to all simple marijuana possession charges in October 2022. However, the cannabis advocate and bar owner Andrew Hannegan said weed should not be classified as a Schedule I drug, on the same federal level as heroin or cocaine. He said the federal government is missing out on marijuana tax revenue out of the fear to admit the War on Drugs was a failure.
Hannegan’s House Beer Co. & Creamery is stationed less than two blocks away from the lounge’s location, closer to the naval base on Tidelands Avenue. Hannegan said he sees potential business coming his way in addition to others nearby, but could also see potential harms to the community as well.
“The only concern on my end, just purely as a citizen, the same anybody else would [have] for a brewery, is 'are you driving home after you smoke?' because when you are high it’s different from when you had a couple drinks. Everyone reacts differently to cannabis,” Hannegan said.
When asked about safeguards similar to bars or clubs, Scherer assured that the lounge’s location was partly chosen for this reason. In addition to ride sharing spaces and employees being properly trained to notice over-consumption, the lounge is far from any sensitive use locations, such as schools or libraries, as required by their permits and will be next door to the Marina Gateway Hotel.
A more skeptical approach to the lounge, however, comes from National City Mayor Ron Morrison. He said there are concerns for the city with the location being near the freeway and the effects from secondhand smoke just by entering the facility. Another concern is the over saturation of cannabis businesses diluting the financial market in the region.
“There’s been these ideas of ‘magic pills’ for communities going on for decades and decades,” Morrison said. “This is kind of the latest one and, I just came back from a meeting with elected officials from all over the state, most of them are realizing it’s not what they expected and not what they were told.”
The mayor also admitted local ownership was emphasized through the appeal’s process, but he personally preferred owners with business experience; a perspective that gives larger businesses a leg up over locals.
A member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, advocate of legal cannabis and business owner, Kuya William Peetoom, agrees with the mayor’s outlook on business experience before practice. However, he said, he sees the lounge as an opportunity for small business owners to enter the cannabis sector and promote marijuana’s healing properties for the city’s veteran population.
“I see cannabis lounges just like hookah lounges, just like cafés, there’s just a little more regulations that need to go into place because you can be impaired,” Peetoom said.
He also agreed with the mayor that cannabis businesses were often placed in low-income areas because the working-class population was likely more tolerant than upper class cities like Coronado. Hannegan, the bar owner, had similar thoughts.
“The fact that it’s here in National City, less people are going to care outside of National City because they’re the ‘not in my backyard’ people,” Hannegan said. “People in La Jolla aren’t going to give a s— that there’s a cannabis lounge in National City.”
The co-founder of the Council for Equity Advocacy in San Diego and Social Equity Committee member of the county’s Cannabis Stakeholders Group, Anthony Avalos, is excited for the lounge to potentially dissipate stigma towards the industry and trauma left by the War on Drugs.
Avalos quotes the San Diego Equity Assessment of 2022 stating Black San Diegans were 5 times as likely to be arrested for cannabis related crimes with Latinx San Diegans 3 times as likely in comparison to their white counterparts from 2015 to 2022. According to Avalos, the disproportionate targeting leads to higher rates of incarceration and lower gains in income.
“Those [stats] are put on full display when you are looking at an emerging industry that you must be highly capitalized in order to enter,” Avalos said. “One thing that’s very clear, the same people who are locked up are now the people who are locked out of the cannabis industry.”
According to Avalos, after working with many cannabis business pioneers, the regulation burden has proven to be financially crippling after the expectation of high production even though the industry is still at its infancy. He says he hopes the lounge will prevail despite massive tax regulation.
Scherer plans to have a community meeting sometime closer to the opening of the lounge in early 2024 to answer any questions or concerns National City residents may have.