As the controversy over Mayor Ed Murray’s hookah lounge crackdown boils up—today’s public comment at city council displayed heated outcry from both pro and con sides—we came across an interesting policy statement that City Attorney Pete Holmes’ office put out earlier this year regarding marijuana laws: Holmes actively supported establishing “Marijuana Use Lounges”—regulated businesses where patrons could vaporize and consume personal marijuana and cannabis edibles on the premises (see page 17 in link to his policy statement above.)

The statement, written in January in advance of the state legislative session (in anticipation of legislation that would fold medical marijuana market into the newly created recreational system), said the City Attorney’s Office was working with council member Nick Licata to propose legislation to city council to allow and regulate on-site pot businesses. The memo noted that the marijuana must be brought in by patrons (due to state law prohibiting consumption of marijuana where it’s sold), and acknowledged the indoor smoking ban, hence only allowing vaporized cannabis and consumption of edibles.

That sounds great, but another factor reveals a discrepancy; the city was proactively trying to work around pre-existing legal roadblocks to indoor smoking and vaporizing, as compared to the city's current approach now with hookah lounges.

The memo states that exemptions on a county ban on indoor electronic smoking would have to be sought from the King County Board of Health. "Because the state Indoor Clean Air Act prohibits smoking, only vaporizers and marijuana edibles are contemplated in such lounges. The King County Board of Health (BOH) would still need to exempt these lounges from the local ban on the use of electronic smoking devices (i.e., vaporizing). The [City Attorney] is working with Council member Licata, who is also a member of the Board of Health, to propose such legislation," it reads. (The Board of Health bans certain types of indoor vaporizing, but not all.)

The city attorney  stands behind his recommendation. “What we'd like to do is create space for local governments to regulate marijuana...locations that are adults only and no smoking so that we can give people an alternative to smoking out on the street,” Deputy City Attorney John Schochet told PubliCola today when I asked him how a proposed policy to create space for recreational marijuana use fit with one to shut down a recreational space for hookah lounges.

At a time when Holmes and Mayor Murray are  going after hookah lounges—establishments which are largely owned and frequented by Arabs and East Africans (saying the lounges aren't only illegal under the state indoor smoking ban, but are also magnets for violence), it's interesting to note that the City was proactively trying to cultivate legal businesses for on-site, indoor marijuana consumption, creating space for a specific leisure activity while now attempting to get rid of spaces for East Africans.

Schochet said the big difference is that hookahs and hookah lounges, in the traditional sense, constitute smoking as defined under the state smoking ban. “Smoking versus vaporizing is the distinction that is important to Pete here,” Schochet said. “Pete's view in supporting use lounges is recognizing that with marijuana being legal and that renters and tourists don't have a place that they can [smoke]. If you don't own your home you aren't not necessarily allowed to use marijuana there and we do want to be able to enforce laws [encouraging people] not to use marijuana on the street.”

The memo also says that the city attorney's office should work with Seattle hoteliers that wish to capitalize on “marijuana tourism” and King County Board of Health regulations that allow for up to 25 percent of hotel rooms to be designated as “smoking rooms.”

Schochet said “If there's a way to make any type of business work, complying with state law, complying with the state no smoking law and that the health department would sign off on, we're certainly open to exploring that.” He also said Holmes would support indoor use of steam stone hookahs, which produce vapor as opposed to smoke.

Legislation on marijuana use lounges hasn't been presented to city council yet, but Holmes stands behind the concept. We have a call out to King County Public Health PIO James Apa to get clarity on county indoor vaporizing regulations.