DENVER — After years of navigating the City of Denver’s permitting process, Cirrus Social Club is open and joins a short list of businesses where consumers can use cannabis in Denver.
Cirrus has been open for about seven months.
“We have served nearly 15,000 guests, which is incredible. I’ve served tables with 3 generations of people,” Arend Richard, the founder of Cirrus Social told Denver7 this week.
Richard said it took a total of three years to open.
“Took over a year to get through the permitting phase. We had to go through two different public sort of hearings where the neighborhood was allowed to chime in about their concerns, about things which could have stopped us from being able to open,” Richard said. “All the while going through the three-year process of developing this business, to get the doors open, paying rent on this building, paying for staff, pay for the process to even see if it was a possibility to get open.”
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Richard said neighbors have been very welcoming to Cirrus.
Recreational marijuana use has been legal in Denver since 2012; however, public use is illegal in most places while consumption lounges and clubs face strict zoning and code rules.
As more states legalize cannabis use, Colorado’s cannabis revenue has fallen, leading business owners to get creative.
But Richard said it’s hard for him to think of Cirrus as a part of the cannabis industry, solely.
“There’s this sort of institutional cannabis industry in Colorado that’s been around for over a decade, and we are doing something completely different than what anyone has done there, right? There are people who grow cannabis, there’s people who own dispensaries and sell cannabis, they have different end goals…our end goal is to get people to spend time us.”
Cirrus Social Club is located at 3200 E. Colfax Ave. You must be 21 to patronize the business.
