Cannabis-Friendly Spa, Hair Salon and Micro-Dispensary Applies to Open in Denver

It doesn't just happen in the movies: There's something about being on a rooftop that makes us think deeper and dream bigger. Maybe it's the view, maybe it's the conquest of heights. Rebecca Marroquin remembers experiencing that feeling a little over ten years ago in Denver's Lower Highland neighborhood.

"Cannabis was just legalized, and I was standing on top of a bike shop in LoHi. All I remember is looking down and thinking about opening a place for yoga and massages with a tea garden," she recalls. "I wanted to do it all, but with cannabis."

Licensed cannabis hospitality and social consumption were essentially banned when Colorado became the first state to legalize recreational pot in 2012, however, so Marroquin had to wait. Intentionally or not, she's been in training for the opportunity to create that business ever since. The 37-year-old mother of two is now a veteran massage therapist with her own studio in Lone Tree, and she has visited Amsterdam and its famous cannabis-friendly coffee shops multiple times.

"I sort of went back to living my life, but this idea was always in the back of my head. I was going to get into an X-ray technician program, but didn't. And I'm glad I decided not to," Marroquin says.

Government rules have slowly caught up with her rooftop dreams, and now Marroquin is ready to get to work.

The Colorado Legislature passed a law creating hospitality licenses in 2019, but local governments must opt in before they're allowed in a municipality. Denver has been one of the few to do so, but pot-friendly establishments have struggled to get off the ground in the Mile High. Since Denver City Council opted into the state's hospitality program in 2021, the city has seen just one open and licensed pot lounge in town — and that establishment, the Coffee Joint, only allows electronic vaping and edibles consumption. The city has given tentative approval to a handful of other businesses that want to allow cannabis smoking, including a Capitol Hill hotel and lounges in RiNo and on East Colfax, but local ventilation and building plan rules have proved difficult to overcome.
Marroquin and her business partner, Keith Runyan, believe they can handle those challenges and learn from past efforts. With the cannabis-loving massage therapist leading the way, the two want to open Colorado's first licensed cannabis spa, hair salon and Amsterdam-style lounge. Named Pure Elevations Spa and Garden, the venue will include a micro-dispensary, three massage rooms, three salon chairs and a bathtub, as well as a tea and coffee lounge and an outdoor garden for smoking, according to Marroquin.

"I want to pay homage to the coffee shops and people who started it, but I also want people who don't smoke cannabis to be able to enjoy this," she says. "We'll have a huge area in the back, maybe for food trucks sometimes, but we also plan to have a patio or gazebo with lounge chairs and fire pits."

Pure Elevations has already secured a location — a warehouse at 185 South Santa Fe Drive — and a cannabis hospitality and micro sales license with the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division, one of just two active licenses in the state (the other one is for JAD's Mile High Smoke, a cannabis bar that opened just outside of Denver in unincorporated Adams County last year). Marroquin filed an application for local approval in Denver last month, according to the Department of Excise & Licenses, and she expects Pure Elevations to have its first public hearing before the end of July.

Excise & Licenses communications director Eric Escudero says that if approved, Pure Elevations would be "the most unique hospitality establishment" in Colorado. But there are reasons that so few pot-friendly establishments exist in Denver right now: The rules are hard to comply with, and cannabis hospitality business plans are still unproven.

To get around Denver's strict ventilation requirements for indoor cannabis smoke, Pure will only allow smoking outside, with edibles consumption allowed in the coffee shop area. By having a micro-dispensary on site and only allowing guests to consume products purchased at Pure, Marroquin won't have to depend on entry fees and snack sales to make money. Figuring out how to infuse massage therapy with THC under current state rules could be difficult, though.

Colorado's current cannabis hospitality laws only allow micro-sales venues to sell .25 grams of concentrate or edibles with no more than 10 milligrams of THC at a time. Lotions, balms and topicals with THC, an integral part of cannabis massages, could be considered part of either product category, and neither allows for the 75-milligram topical dose Marroquin uses in her massage sessions. She hopes future state rulemaking will make exceptions for topicals, since they don't enter the bloodstream or intoxicate users.

State and local laws also require extensive surveillance at cannabis hospitality businesses, and Marroquin is adamant that massages should not be recorded.

"Currently, with the way laws are right now, we can't offer topicals, but I'm hopeful that will change before we open," she says. "My idea is unique. It's different. And I'm excited to bring it to life."

Offering THC-based treatments is important to Marroquin, whose family has embraced the plant since she was young. Her grandmother used to make cannabis tinctures and topicals out of stems, seeds and grain alcohol, and her aunt frequently uses topicals for ankle pain. In 2011, Marroquin became a medical marijuana patient after a car accident fractured her neck in three places.

"I have a very sensitive stomach, and taking pain pills wasn't that much of an option for me. I tried topicals as well as other marijuana products to help manage my pain, which worked," she explains. "My tía had, like, five surgeries on her ankle, and that caused her a lot of pain, too. But when I rubbed topicals on her ankle, she said it really helped."

Pure Elevation's future home on Santa Fe sits empty as Marroquin and Runyan await approval from Excise & Licenses and the Department of Community Planning and Development. The building may have plenty of room inside, but it's barely big enough to contain Marroquin's excitement.

"It's hard not to think about it as we get closer. This is a miracle, for this to be happening. It's a dream come true," Marroquin says before correcting herself: "Or more like a rooftop dream come true."