Cannabis will get some time in the Vegas spotlight next month.
“Monetizing Cannabis” will be a featured panel discussion at the 2017 Nightclub & Bar Show, running March 27-29 in Las Vegas.
“There’s cannabis tourism, but not cannabis hospitality,” panelist Freddie Wyatt tells The Cannabist in an exclusive interview. “We’re at the brink of hospitality being integrated into the cannabis industry.
“Look at what Denver is trying to do.”
The Mile High City is developing a first-of-its-kind social use ordinance that would allow for some forms of cannabis consumption in certain businesses, with the exception of those with liquor licenses. Denver’s experiment in integrating cannabis and hospitality comes as a handful of states — Nevada among them — recently voted in recreational marijuana measures.
“(Cannabis) is going to keep growing into the hospitality business,” says Wyatt, who’s the founder of Munch & Co., which produces and manages events in the cannabis industry.
But just how bars, nightclubs and other entities accomplish that while being mindful of unique regulations and equally unique public safety concerns is the topic Wyatt and others hope to broach in the nation’s adult playground.
He says the panel is likely to address topics such as money-making opportunities, cannabis mixology, new concept venues and the regulatory landscape.
“I think it’s just figuring out where somebody can recreate that can’t do it in the restrictions (put in place). … If you’re for, or against, there’s got to be a thorough policy,” Wyatt says.
Other panelists include Tripp Keber, chief executive officer of Dixie Brands, a maker of cannabis-infused products; and Joe DiSalvo, sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado. Ricardo Baca, The Cannabist’s contributing editor, is slated to moderate the panel.