Pure Elevations, Denver’s First Cannabis Spa, Fighting to Stay Open

Denver’s first cannabis spa started welcoming clients in September. Weeks later, founder Rebecca Marroquin is fighting to keep the doors open at Pure Elevations Canna-Spa & Salon.

The cost of doing business in the cannabis hospitality industry is high. With barriers to entry and strict federal regulations, the sagas of Tetra Lounge and the Coffee Joint demonstrate the challenges of securing a license to operate a cannabis consumption lounge in Denver. However, Marroquin soon learned that licensing wasn't the final hurdle.

Marroquin's effort to enter the cannabis industry began three years ago, only two years after laws were introduced to allow cannabis hospitality businesses on a state level. But her advocacy of cannabis long pre-dates that.

In 2011, while pursuing a degree in massage therapy, Marroquin survived a near-fatal car accident that resulted in a broken neck and multiple fractures. Because she was pregnant, doctors opted against major surgery, sending her home with a laundry list of prescriptions instead. Soon, the side effects of the meds outweighed the benefits.

“I would start to get sick, and then they would give me more medications. Eventually, I started getting so sick that I ended up losing the baby," she recalls.

Suffocating under the weight of ongoing anxiety and depression, Marroquin found relief in cannabis. And soon her dream of creating a space where weed and wellness intersect was born.

“Using weed really helped, and that’s why this place exists. I want to help other people,” she says. “And not just people with anxiety. We can help so many people on so many levels, from depression to even eczema to cramps.”
But her vision for a THC-friendly sanctuary met with many bureaucratic roadblocks — including laws enforced by both federal and state governments. For starters, she had to find a place where she could open her spa, and wound up in a building at 185 South Santa Fe Drive, eight blocks from Denver's Art District on Santa Fe.

“With the regulations and the setbacks, this is the only place that we honestly could open,” Marroquin says, citing the regulations that prohibit opening a cannabis hospitality location near a school, daycare, church, dispensary or fellow hospitality business. “We do know that it’s an issue, but it’s kind of out of our hands."

Then she needed to get a license and the required permits from the city and state. Colorado's came through first; Denver's followed last fall. Initially Marroquin planned to open Pure Elevations in April, but that date was pushed back to September. And even once the doors were open, people didn't realize the spa was there.

State regulations dictate how and where cannabis businesses advertise. For Marroquin, complying with these regulations meant locking up the sign she wanted to put on the front of the storefront in a spare room at the well-stocked spa.
Pure Elevations provides stoners with the self-care starter kit they didn’t know they needed, promising everything from soothing solo or couple massages to THC-infused hair and nail treatments. Guests can sip on artisanal concoctions from a full-service cannabis bar stocked with products from GreenDot, Mary’s Medicinals, Lazercat, Ripple and more; outside of the sanctuary is a handicap-accessible outdoor consumption lounge, complete with comfy couches and fire pits for the winter.

If Pure Elevation makes it until winter.

“We have accomplished so much, and it’s so scary right now because the last month has been really slow and the costs are so much," she says. "Nobody realizes the cost of insuring a dispensary, not including all of the licensing fees, our employees, taxes — it’s so hard.”

Nonetheless, the cannapreneur persists. “I don’t want to have come so far and then have to shut down before we even have a chance of success. That’s our biggest fear," she admits.

“Five years ago, if you would have asked me if this place would even exist — no," Marroquin says. "So to think what this place could be in five years, I can’t tell you...but the sky is the limit.”

Pure Elevations is located at 185 South Santa Fe Drive and is open on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. For appointments or inquiries, call 720-534-0879, visit pureelevations.com, or follow the spa on Instagram at @pureelevations.