photo credit: Michelle Marques
The Lounge at Mercy Wellness is Sonoma County’s first cannabis consumption lounge.

Sonoma County’s first cannabis consumption lounge is opening this weekend in Cotati.

Mercy Wellness was founded in 2010 under California’s Proposition 215, that allowed for medical cannabis dispensaries. Mercy Wellness expanded into the recreational market after voters in the state approved Proposition 64.

Now the company has opened the first cannabis consumption lounge in Sonoma County.

“This was put in motion probably 5 years ago. So the start of it was talking with the city of Cotati and getting them to create an ordinance that allowed for consumption, work around all of the hurdles that come along with that to today where we’re actually going to open.”

That’s Brandon Levine, founder and CEO of Mercy Wellness, who spoke with me in the new lounge minutes before the doors opened for their soft launch. He says the permitting process was fairly smooth with the city of Cotati due to a long-established record as a local business.

Levine says much of the delay came from building permits and issues unique to a cannabis consumption lounge.

“It had to have a really robust HVAC system to remediate the smoke and make it a safe environment and comfortable environment,” said Levine. “So the engineering took us probably a year to really come up with a system that we felt very confident that was going to be safe for people to be in here and consuming and whatnot.”

I asked whether there were concerns from neighbors about the weedy smell.

“Well, we don’t have any neighbors,” Levine said with a smile. “So, the upside is behind us is the freeway. So, a freeway off ramp. Burger King is across the street. They have their own odor. And the Chinese restaurant is across the street, and they also have their own odor. So far nobody has complained. We do have a cultivation on site and we’ve gone during our events where we have 420 and checked with the neighbors, had law enforcement come, the city comes down. They want to also make sure that it’s not impacting the – what neighbors we do have. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”

Levine says he designed and built much of the interior of the lounge. It includes a DJ booth and a stage, VIP booths, chandeliers, and a curved bar where budtenders can help customers. He says he has plans to curate special events in the space.

“We’ll try and be inclusive of everybody because that’s really my what draws me to cannabis is – it’s everybody. It’s anybody from, you know, 21 to 90 or older and of every walk of life. And we wanted this to be a place where everybody can come and feel comfortable because social consumption just hasn’t exist until recently and there’s nothing anywhere in our area in the North Bay,” said Levine.

Inside the lounge, there are menus with cannabis flower, concentrates, pre-rolls, beverages, and edibles. They are also offering equipment like bongs and electric rigs for customer use. He says they have trained budtenders to look for over-intoxication, similar to the ServSafe certification that bartenders and hospitality workers take.

“A few years back, we worked directly with the Highway Patrol to help them create their ‘Drive High equals DUI’ program and getting that message out there to our customers and then educating our staff,” explained Levine. And so it’s this is actually started quite a while ago as far as just getting the message, getting the training. Our staff is all taking responsible beverage certificates and then that group that does those certificates for alcohol is going to work with us to create a program for cannabis in specific, but we also, you know, if somebody’s intoxicated and needs a ride, we’ll have a Uber code that will make sure that they can get home safe and we’re going to accommodate people.”

The doors officially opened as I wrapped up my conversation with Levine, and the tell-tale whiff of a lit joint wafted through the air.

“I think we just opened the doors,” said Levine.

“It smells a little different in here,” I said with a laugh.

“Yeah, it’s starting to smell good, right?” Levine responded.