The hostess at Ocean Time Bed and Breakfast in Yachats wants her guests to really relax, so she is totally OK with them smoking marijuana.
“They can smoke in bed,” Ocean Time owner Deb Cardy said. “They can in the bathtub. They can smoke at the kitchen table. They can smoke watching TV. They can go outside. They can do whatever they like. I have a meditation garden. I’ve got a fire pit.”
Only a handful of bed and breakfasts in Oregon allow guests to use marijuana on the property, according to websites catering to cannabis curious travelers, including Ocean Time and another bed and breakfast near Springfield. Hotels and motels qualify as public spaces under state rules, she said, so smaller lodging options, such as bed and breakfasts, have the possibility to be pot havens.
Few bed and breakfasts have joined the green rush, though. Kush Tourism, a popular marijuana travel website, lists only four in Oregon. McKenzie Orchards Bed and Breakfast Inn is in Lane County, on McKenzie View Drive in Springfield along the McKenzie River. Ocean Time, in Lincoln County, is slightly less than a two-hour drive from Eugene. The other two bed and breakfasts are in the Portland metro area. Guests still must bring their own marijuana with them because of state rules.
For pay lodging providers, such as bed and breakfasts, hosts cannot sell to guests, said Christie Scott, Oregon Liquor Control Commission spokeswoman.
“Also, there cannot be any consideration in return. For example, it cannot be a free (marijuana) with room or with purchase of something else. Or free (marijuana) and they provide a tip jar.”
The OLCC regulates marijuana businesses as well as alcohol sales in Oregon.
Ocean Time and McKenzie Orchards serve as examples of opposite ends of the marijuana lodging spectrum. Most guests check into Ocean Time ready for pot to be a part of their stay at the Oregon Coast, Cardy said. While about 10 percent of the guests at McKenzie Orchards use marijuana during their stay, owner Tom Reid said: “I would say the number of guests who come here because we are dog friendly is the same as cannabis friendly,” he said.
A night at Ocean Time starts at $110, according to Bud and Breakfast, another marijuana travel website. Rates at McKenzie Orchards range from $165 to $195 per night. Ocean Time has one guest room and McKenzie Orchards five guest rooms.
Cardy said she uses marijuana medically to cope with cancer and multiple sclerosis, having moved to Oregon in 2000 from Colorado. Reid and his wife, Karen Reid, moved to Oregon from Northern California in 2002 to for a change of scenery.
The Reids opened McKenzie Orchards in 2009. Cardy opened Ocean Time last year.
Reid said he lets guests smoke pot outside — on the front porch or back patio — as an extension of hospitality.
“If somebody wants to smoke marijuana, we ask that they smoke outside, and we give them a square of aluminum foil so that when they’re done they can wrap up the roach and throw it out,” he said.
“This is cannabis in the mainstream,” he said. “We’re about as straightlaced a place as you’ll find.”
He said he has allowed marijuana use since recreational pot became legal in Oregon in summer 2015.
“We just simply are allowing guests to comply with state law and consume what they want,” Reid. “We don’t sell it. We don’t grow it. We don’t promote it. It’s a very straightforward luxury accommodation.”
Cardy said she opened Ocean Time a year ago.
Some of the guests at both bed and breakfasts come from states where medical marijuana remains illegal, and the purpose of their trip is to test pot as a treatment.
“Marijuana is the one thing I can take that kind of universally helps my whole body, the whole system,” Cardy said. She said 70 percent of her guests come from out of state.
Other guests simply want to see what recreational marijuana is like. In an email, Cardy recalled some guests who came to Ocean Time from out of state.
“As soon as they hit the state of Oregon,” she wrote, “they began to stop at each dispensary. Each one on their map and GPS. By the time they arrived at my house, they had shopping bags (full)! The pile grew and grew on my table as they unpacked their finds! Amazing!”
credit:registerguard.com