The law was confusing enough — and troubling enough — that some bars and restaurants decided it was safer to keep hemp-derived beverages off the menu.
At issue was a provision in the state’s recreational marijuana law signed last May that would have prohibited bar servers from selling a patron alcohol and THC beverages in the same five-hour period.
The first confusion was over when bars would start enforcing the “five-hour rule.” Some thought immediately after the bill’s passage, but the myriad effectiveness dates contained in the 300-page bill said it wasn’t to become law until spring 2025. Regardless, the larger issue was this: While a server might know that a patron who they’d served a beer to couldn’t then be served a THC-seltzer, they would have no way of knowing if other patrons had one or the other at another bar.
It was the first thing I thought of having done my responsible service of alcohol certification to work in bars in Australia. Not that it prevents irresponsible service, but you are meant to be checking for specific signs of inebriation in order to selectively deny service to drunk people and adding stoned people into that mix will muddy the waters