Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Las Vegas OKs drive-thru service for marijuana dispensaries

budtender

Richard Vogel / AP

In this Thursday, April 16, 2020 photo, wearing a protective mask and gloves, budtender Alexi Ezdrin attends to a customer with curbside service at The Higher Path cannabis dispensary in the Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles. Nevada has allowed curbside pickup at its dispensaries to help limit the spread of COVID-19. 

The Las Vegas City Council today approved allowing drive-thru service at marijuana dispensaries.

In an emergency order last May, the state temporarily allowed curbside pickup for dispensaries to help limit the spread of the coronavirus. But the service would have expired when the state’s emergency order ended.

Business owners advocated for the change to be permanent, saying it is convenient for elderly and medical patients, wrote Layke Martin, the executive director of the Nevada Dispensary Association in a letter to the city.

Martin is also advocating the Nevada Legislature to allow curbside to continue.

There are certain standards for offering the service, which are put in place by the regulating state Department of Taxation. They include: Orders must be placed in advanced and customers can’t leave the vehicle for a transaction; minors can’t be in the customer’s vehicle; businesses must have designated parking spots for curbside customers; and each dispensary needs an individual blessing from the state to offer the service.

Mayor Carolyn Goodman abstained from the Las Vegas vote because her son is in the marijuana business.