Emerald City<\/a>, a first-of-its-kind cannabis consumption lounge planted firmly at 937 Woodward St. After years of scouting spaces and studying California\u2019s blueprint, Stinnett found her spot: a 2,000-square-foot former blues bar. She rebuilt it into what she calls \u201ca place where people can come and enjoy the company of others while consuming products that are non-alcoholic.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\nInside, the atmosphere is more akin\u00a0to a craft brewery than a typical head shop. Bright, comfortable seating replaces the dark corners of old-school smoke dens. The products \u2014 lab-tested, state-legal, and hemp-derived \u2014 range from smokables to fast-acting seltzers and infused beverages. \u201cWe chose those because people can feel the effects quickly, the way they would with alcohol,\u201d Stinnett says. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to wait an hour like with an edible.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you’re on the go, you can take some product home with you as well. After all, Emerald City is also a dispensary. A knowledgeable staff is on hand to help customers place their\u00a0orders and help them\u00a0find the right product to fit their mood behind a large L-shaped bar, adorned with a custom mural and neon signs. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Outside of the brightly lit lounge area, which is equipped with a stage and several booths and tables, is a 1,100-square-foot, open-air space designed with Texas patio culture in mind. This outdoor area boasts fresh air with comfortable seating and shade where patrons can order products tableside.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m a Texas girl,\u201d Stinnett says. \u201cPatio living just makes sense.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
If the lounge feels radical, it\u2019s because of the context. Panther Island is still a construction zone, with its ambitious \u201cRiverwalk-style\u201d future yet to be realized. Across the street, the police station stands as a reminder of a time when even a trace of cannabis in an ashtray could get you hauled downtown. Stinnett embraces the irony. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have lab results for every single product we sell,\u201d she says. \u201cEverything is federally and state legal and hemp-derived. So we welcome them in and as soon as they leave the station, they see the big sign out front. We just felt confident to be able to post up here because all of our products are high quality, non-synthetic, from certified sources.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
That forward motion has taken her all the way to the statehouse, where she\u2019s testified before committees and lobbied legislators with the Texas Hemp Coalition to prevent outright bans and instead push for regulation. \u201cProbably one of the most stressful times of my life,\u201d she admits, recalling the governor\u2019s decision to veto a THC ban earlier this\u00a0year. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The diversity of her clientele is proof of concept. College students, city workers, C-suite executives, retirees \u2014 they all walk through Emerald City\u2019s doors. Some come for relief from pain, others for a social alternative to alcohol. \u201cSomeone came in last week and said, \u2018I thought it\u2019d be a cold day in hell before I saw a public place where we could smoke indoors,\u2019\u201d Stinnett says, laughing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For her, the goal is bigger than one lounge. \u201cIf there\u2019s a cannabis lounge on every street corner, we did it,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is about moving the industry forward together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just across the street from a soon-to-be-shuttered Fort Worth police station, business owner Candice Stinnett is rewriting the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":156543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,9729,2105,7371,7372,11591,91167,41104,23492,10763,358,7453,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-156542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-drink","10":"tag-food-and-drink","11":"tag-fort-worth","12":"tag-fortworth","13":"tag-hemp","14":"tag-lounge","15":"tag-panther-island","16":"tag-smoke","17":"tag-stephen-montoya","18":"tag-texas","19":"tag-top-story","20":"tag-tx","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115051534159348116","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}