Cannabis Venue Threatened With License Revocation — the Day of Westword Weed Event

One of the three venues permitted for cannabis use in Denver was hit with an order from the city licensing department last week, demanding that it prove why its cannabis hospitality license should not be revoked in the face of several alleged violations.

And it all went down the day we were supposed to hold an event there.

This fiasco was just a day in the life of a cannabis event organizer, most of whom are often stuck working with long, confusing and restrictive rules at the state and local levels. But liberal media cucks usually don't organize events...we just criticize them.

Westword has been covering the saga of Tetra Lounge at 3039 Walnut Street since 2018, when owner Dewayne Benjamin first opened the space as a private cannabis club. After six years of going back and forth with Denver's licensing, police and building departments — with a bogus ribbon-cutting ceremony held by politicians in the middle of all of it — Benjamin and Tetra finally received a permit in 2024 to allow people to consume their own cannabis on the premises.

Since opening to the public last summer, Tetra has been the only realistic spot where casual and regular cannabis users can legally light up and recreate the vibe of a regular bar. The newly licensed Cirrus Social Club on East Colfax Avenue, although entertaining and well-received, caters more to the canna-curious or an intimate night out with your significant other. Denver's only other licensed cannabis venue, the Coffee Joint, is an industrial part of town off I-25 and only allows edibles and electronic vaporizing and dabbing.

Tetra is located in a walkable part of RiNo with nearby restaurants, concert halls and bars. The lounge's BYOC (bring your own cannabis) model allows for fun events that allow visitors to try cannabis brought by others, including reps from dispensary brands...or so we thought.

On Thursday, August 7, the same day Westword was set to host a party at Tetra launching our infused pre-roll collaboration, we received a copy of a show-cause order sent to Tetra by the Denver Department of Excise & Licenses. In the order, Tetra is accused of allowing advertisements for psilocybin, DMT and other natural psychedelics on April 20; that's a banned practice in Colorado, especially for licensed cannabis businesses, according to Excise & Licenses.
Tetra also allegedly allowed cannabis vendors to provide "samples" to visitors, which is banned by the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division, and the city department also charged that the venue had been allowing people inside the building despite not having a local certificate of occupancy.

This was the equivalent of clearing the yellowest bong hit you've ever seen, and we're still hacking it out.

As the Denver publication with the longest-running cannabis section, we had wanted to host a cannabis-friendly event for years. So it was ironic when our partnering venue got hit with a potential license revocation on the day of that event. Not only that, but the city's order says the initial investigation was "prompted after an article in Westword was published, highlighting the marijuana hospitality businesses in Denver. Tetra was featured in the article and the article described patrons consuming marijuana inside the licensed premises." (Spoiler alert: it was probably this one describing people vaping inside of Tetra. Our bad.)

Benjamin had told us that people were allowed to vape and eat edibles inside of Tetra after he spent thousands of dollars to update the interior and HVAC system, but the city says that Tetra still doesn't have a certificate of occupancy for the interior building. According to Excise & Licenses, Tetra can only allow people to smoke outside.

The show-cause order also accuses Tetra of allowing marijuana concentrate and edibles to be sold to visitors by an unlicensed cannabis vendor during an April 28 follow-up inspection, as well as allowing a booth to hand out gummies allegedly infused with psilocybin (the booth was not located on Tetra's premises, but was part of a Tetra event next door, according to city inspectors).

Benjamin denies that any illicit sales have taken place at Tetra and says he has camera footage to prove it. He argues that any cannabis handouts from patrons or vendors were "sharing, not samples." He also says one of the city inspectors who visited Tetra on April 20 ate a gummy from the booth accused of handing out psilocybin edibles.

According to Benjamin, another city worker saw the inspector eat the gummy. After Benjamin reported the incident to the city and the Denver Post inquired about it, Excise & Licenses said that the employee who allegedly ate the gummy no longer works for the City of Denver.

Tetra now must prove why its cannabis hospitality license should not be revoked by Excise & Licenses during a hearing on October 10, but the venue can remain open during the process. The licensing department notes that 90 percent of show-cause orders end in a settlement between the business owner and the city.

Labeling Tetra's relationship with the city as "complicated" would be an understatement. Benjamin has been issued a handful of citations and orders from the city since he opened the lounge, including a few public consumption violations in 2018 (those charges were eventually dropped), orders to close during the pandemic, and a summons from the City Attorney in 2023 for hosting unlicensed cannabis events. He has maintained that since Tetra was a private club with membership required to enter, his business wasn't subject to local and state rules for licensed marijuana businesses.

There have been moments of peace. As a business with a social equity designation, Tetra once received a five-figure grant from the state Cannabis Business Office. In 2022, Tetra was approved by Denver for a hospitality license. But even that went south quickly.

In March 2022, Tetra celebrated being "approved" for a cannabis hospitality license with a ribbon-cutting ceremony that included Governor Jared Polis, then-Mayor Michael Hancock and Excise & Licenses executive director Molly Duplechian. But Tetra didn't actually receive the license until 2024. Excise & Licenses later explained that being "approved" isn't the end of the road for applications, and that Tetra still needed to satisfy building and planning requirements for patron access.
After clearing the regulatory and building hurdles needed to open the back patio last summer, Tetra seemed to have finally found its groove. While brainstorming cannabis-friendly venues to host an event for Westword readers and members, Tetra was an obvious and accessible choice to host anything we came up with.

And what we concocted was the Roller Derby.

The August 7 event was designed to celebrate the release of a joint project between Westword, the Meraki cultivation and Mighty Melts solventless extraction, and to tell our readers and Tetra loyalists about the newly branded pre-rolls (*cough* which are still available at a few dispensaries around town *cough*). We had a joint-rolling competition prepared, and a few booths so the cannabis community could meet our readers.

That changed after the show-cause order arrived, though. While it would have been fun to share the night with Meraki and Mighty Melts, we still got high with our readers on Tetra's back patio and judged Denver's joint-rolling skills. And that was pretty damn cool...and within Colorado's guidelines.

It's a shame to see Tetra, a tenacious business and the only place where members of the cannabis industry can legally meet and enjoy the fruits of their labor, run into so many problems. Tetra keeps public cannabis use off sidewalks and alleyways in one of Denver's most popular neighborhoods. It's owned by a Black man who appears dedicated to staying in Denver in spite of crumbling local cannabis sales. And, apart from officials in the city's licensing and building departments, we can't find anyone upset with the place.

Benjamin wasn't available to comment on the current status of the building's certificate of occupancy, but argues that the city has "put a target on my back." Still, the licensing department has remained steadfast in making sure businesses follow the hospitality rules despite criticism from the cannabis community.

Maybe everyone should just smoke a joint and chill out. We may know where you can find a few.