Cannabis stores in Portland can now sell non-cannabis beverages on their premises after unanimous approval from the city council on Monday.
The change in city code allows businesses such as Higher Grounds on Wharf Street to resume offering coffee and lattes after owner Mark Barnett says their beverage service was shut down last fall.
“My business and my staff ended up last September, unable to serve our customers our most popular beverages – hot lattes, cortados, matcha latte, anything with steamed milk – after seven years of previous operation without complaint or dispute,” said Barnett during Monday’s city council meeting,” Barnett said.
The change in the city code (Chapters 15 and 35) will let marijuana retailers sell non alcoholic beverages prepared on-site to customers 21 and older in Portland.
Barnet said his business had suffered severe “economic pain” since his beverage business was shut down, and said amending the city’s code could benefit other cannabis shops that might be struggling downtown.
“It would also allow any other marijuana retail stores to better diversify their revenue streams in a time of economic crisis, which any member of the downtown community or the cannabis community could tell you that we are already in the grips of,” Barnett said.
Barnett’s Higher Grounds opened in 2017 as a regular coffee shop before becoming a marijuana retail store in 2020.
The amendment to change the city code was offered by city councilor Anna Bullet, who noted the city would have to hire a new inspector to monitor cannabis operations. She said the city was in need of another inspector in general to cover the increase in cannabis business since voters opted to the city’s cap of 20 such operations in 2022.
