Axios D.C.
May 07, 2026
1 big thing: 🍃 Social dispensaries are the new bars
D.C. dispensaries are starting to feel less like retail counters and more like lounges or wellness retreats, thanks to evolving rules that allow on-site consumption and social experiences beyond buying bud.
Why it matters: The city's cannabis culture is moving more mainstream — closer to the jump from Prohibition-era speakeasies to lively bars (sans alcohol, of course).
📝 How it works: Medical cannabis retailers can apply for three permits that allow on-site use, from outdoor "summer gardens" where you can smoke a joint to "education tastings" where you might take a gummy before meditation.
- Permitting rolled out in 2024, and it's just starting to show up on the ground as a new wave of cannabis-fueled hangouts and wellness studios.
- ABCA tells Axios nearly a dozen permits have been issued.
💨 Driving the news: Higher Ground, the city's largest "safe-use consumption" space, just opened in Ivy City with room for around 130 guests.
- The 20,000-square-foot indoor/outdoor complex — formerly One Eight Distillery — basically swaps booze for bud.
- Where stills once stood, there's now a state-of-the-art cultivation center visible behind the bar.
- A retail shop sells pre-rolls and gummies instead of whiskey.
- A former liquor cabinet is stocked with heady glass pieces — some worth $100,000.
Patrons can consume edibles, tinctures or smoke indoors and on the patio, where general manager Robbie Martin plans movie nights, morning yoga and food truck pop-ups — not unlike nearby breweries.
What they're saying: "My ethos has always been cannabis hospitality — I never wanted to open a shop to sell as many eighths as possible," Martin tells Axios.
- His team comes from the restaurant world, and the goal at Higher Ground is to make an "experiential" space — with a sleek members' lounge and murals by local artists.
The big picture: Martin calls the shift from distillery to dispensary a "microcosm of a broader trend" — people drinking less and consuming more cannabis, especially millennials and Gen Z.
- "But that leaves a gap socially," he says. "Especially on the East Coast, there aren't many cannabis-friendly third spaces for people to build community around. That's what we're trying to create."
🫗 Zoom in: As alcohol sales soften, hospitality vets are betting on cannabis.
- Greg Casten of Fish & Fire Food Group (Tony & Joe's, et al.) spent $2.7 million on an Eckington warehouse he's turning into a golf simulator and dispensary.
- A cannabis consumer himself, he sees the shift firsthand: 30 people lined up at a dispensary on a Friday afternoon, about twice as big as his bar's crowd.
- "Kids aren't drinking as much," Casten says. "And in the bar industry, you want youth at your bar. That attracts the next age group with more income."
Enter the golf-dispensary concept — "a fun way to look at cannabis."
- The project is still tied up in permitting, but the vision is clear: membership-based golf bays, TVs, indoor/outdoor consumption areas.
Zoom out: D.C.'s on-site consumption laws set it apart in the region — in Maryland, for example, customers can't even handle products before buying.
⬇️ What other dispensaries are doing
Editor's note: This story has been corrected to reflect that Robbie Martin is the general manager of Higher Ground (not the co-owner).
2. 🧘 Mindful marijuana
Not all dispensaries with on-premise consumption are social-first. At Aligned DC in Tenleytown, cannabis looks more like self-care.
- Owner Sunni Love offers yoga, meditation and sound baths — with cannabis optional. Those who partake can opt for low-dose (5 mg) gummies or infused teas.
Her goal: Introduce cannabis "in a mindful way that's not all around numbing or getting high."
- Since adding on-site consumption last year, she's seen more cannabis-curious customers — especially for solo sessions.
- "My goal is to help people explore different ways to regulate their nervous system in this crazy world and city we live in," Love says.
3. 🚨 FBI raids top Virginia pol's office
4. Around the Beltway: 👀 Fight night sneak peek
🥊 President Trump yesterday showed renderings of his UFC "Freedom 250" fight (June 14), which will transform the White House South Lawn with a fight venue, thousands of seats — and, of course, a makeshift arch. (Fox 5)
📊 Reacting to the crime stats scandal, Mayor Bowser yesterday suggested "some changes" would be necessary to "make sure that any crime data has a second look." MPD served termination notices to 13 officials, including an assistant police chief. (WUSA9)
🪧After five-plus days atop Frederick Douglass Bridge, Guido Reichstadter came down Wednesday, ending his protest of AI and the Iran war. The Florida man faces charges including unlawful entry. (WTOP)
Axios D.C.
