Pubdate: Tue, 20 Aug 2013
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2013 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: John M. Glionna

POT LAW LIGHTS UP A BEER JOINT

A Washington State Bar, Where Friends Pass Pipes and Play Pool, Might 
Just Be a Stoner's Paradise. and the Police Can't Touch It.

Tavern owner Frankie Schnarr takes a long draw from his bottle of 
Coors Light and scans his sports bar, listening to billiard balls 
rattle and a pinball machine explode with points.

Suddenly, there's that smell: musky-sweet, skunky yet somehow 
pleasing, an odor traditionally fraught with illegality.

Three men in jeans and sleeveless shirts shooting pool nearby fire up 
a small purple pipe packed with pot. They inhale deeply between 
shots, laughing, passing the bowl, mellowing their buzz with an 
occasional swig of beer.

Marijuana. Being brazenly smoked in public, right there under the bar 
owner's nose. Schnarr smiles. "You get used to the smell - it's like 
the mold at your mom's house," he says, motioning for another Coors. 
"It's strange at first, but later you realize, 'Oh, that's what that 
is.' Some people walk in here these days and go, 'Oh, wow.' But most 
walk in and say: 'Oh, wow. This is cool!' "

At Frankie's Sports Bar and Grill, firing up a "fatty" or a "blunt" 
is not only condoned, it's welcomed.

Last fall, Washington state legalized recreational marijuana use, 
allowing people to smoke the drug in private, but not in public 
places such as bars. Schnarr, 63, has found a way around that: He's 
using a space in his bar he says is private, not public.

Now the second floor of his sports bar - a mammoth room with TVs, 
card tables, 10 pool tables, four shuffleboard tables and rows of 
booths - is the only pub in the state to allow the practice. It's a 
rarefied realm where patrons burn joints and bowls of greenish weed 
in a free-for-all fashion that's still unknown in most of law-abiding America.

As state officials scramble to change the law and put a stop to 
Schnarr's reefer madness, patrons like Jason Southwick can't believe 
their good fortune.

The 32-year-old unemployed landscaper takes a bud of pot from a 
plastic medicine vial, packs his pipe and breathes in for a prolonged moment.

His friends list ways stoners and boozers handle their buzzes 
differently: Pot smokers don't start fights and don't run people over 
at crosswalks.

"We're more chill," one woman says.

Southwick tries to blow a smoke ring, but coughs instead, his breath 
acrid, eyes inflamed. His friends smirk: He's broken an unwritten 
rule, greedily sucking in so much smoke that his lungs rebel.

He gazes up at a slow-turning ceiling fan for a prolonged moment. 
"Wow, man, that is strong," he says. He walks underneath, staring 
quizzically. "Have you ever seen anything like this? Dude, I've never 
felt so much wind in my life." No one is listening. Except Schnarr: 
Pot smokers like Southwick have translated into brisk business.

"These stoners are polite people," he said. "I haven't heard as much 
'Yes, sir' and 'No, sir' in my 25 years in the bar business. And they 
spend money. After they start smoking, they may not drink as much. 
But they sure do eat."

Schnarr is a rebel with a for-profit cause. "He likes to push the 
envelope," said his lawyer, Shawn Newman. "He's a risk-taker, a 
fighter. He'll take you on."

He's taken on the state of Washington on two occasions, both times 
challenging edicts on what he can and cannot do inside his business.

In 2006, when the state banned cigarette smoking in bars, Schnarr saw 
his profits plummet. He tried publicity stunts and rule-bending to 
keep his drinking emporium afloat: bar specials, car-racing parties 
and waitresses in bikinis.

Then one day, he decided to read the new law. "I have a seventh-grade 
education," said Schnarr, who opened his bar in 1994. "When I read 
something, I really got to read it hard."

He spotted a way around the ban: He created what he called a private 
room on his bar's second floor, with enhanced ventilation, and 
invited members (for a $10 annual fee) to puff away to their lung's content.

They quickly became known as "Friends of Frankie." Because they were 
partaking in a private room, there was no conflict with public 
anti-smoking laws, Schnarr insisted. More than 10,000 people signed 
up and received membership cards.

The state later sued but a judge ruled in favor of Schnarr's private 
space within a public place.

Late last year, Washington and Colorado legalized marijuana for 
recreational use, putting state agencies in charge of regulating its 
sale to anyone old enough to drink alcohol. That's when Schnarr got busy again.

He invited pot smokers to join the cigarette-puffing "Friends of 
Frankie" in the same second-floor space. His list of private tokers 
and smokers has since grown by the hundreds, he says.

Before the pot law, business was failing. Now it's risen 40%.

Schnarr's move caught officials from the Washington State Liquor 
Control Board by surprise. The law forbids pot smoking in public 
taverns because the scientific research remains fuzzy on the health 
effects of the doublewhammy of alcohol and marijuana, they say.

"He's a bit of a thorn in our side," board member Chris Marr said of 
Schnarr. "But you have to admire his entrepreneurial spirit."

Marr says the state plans to consult lawyers to stop patrons from 
getting high in Schnarr's bar, which is down the street from the 
board's headquarters. But the bar owner's challenge has given the board pause.

"Are we doing the right thing?" Marr asked. "Should we restrict the 
public-place consumption of pot when we don't do the same thing for alcohol?"

Legal experts warn that the weed-smoking tiff could be repeated elsewhere.

"There are going to be more Frankies out there," said Jonathan 
Caulkins, a drug policy research expert and coauthor of the book 
"Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know." "The free 
market is a very creative place. Any rule you come up with, 
entrepreneurs will find a way around it."

Schnarr says he has a personal reason to challenge state law: He 
wants to leave behind a thriving business for his wife, Cheri. He 
points to his chest, describing his multiple heart attacks and 
stents, his replaced valves and diabetes. He knows his time could be fleeting.

He has no choice but to take on the authorities, he says. "I'll find 
every loophole I can. If it's legal, I'll do it."

He looks up, as though seeking divine inspiration.

"Hell, if they legalized prostitution, I'd build a third floor up top 
and have ladies working out of there faster than anybody's business."

Southwick claims he's found a veritable pot smoker's paradise. His 
days of sneaking to the parking lot to "burn a fatty" with the boys are over.

"I'm home," he said, snuggling with his girlfriend in a worn leather 
booth. "It's like I'm back in my basement - listening to music, 
playing pool, drinking, firing up the occasional bowl. Except I'm out 
in public. Who ever thought we'd see this day?"

Everything about Schnarr's bar is eye-catching, cartoonish. Its 
outdoor facade sports a portrait of a Fred Flintstone character 
holding a club along with the words: Man Cave.

The second floor is a sports lover's paradise, a 6,000-squarefoot 
room that's twice as big as the public bar downstairs.

More than 30 members move from one participatory sports game to the 
next. Others stare at a dozen TV screens, one of them just above a 
beer poster advertising "the High Life." Bartenders answer the phone 
"Frankie's upstairs."

Placards warn patrons that there are limits on the amount and 
chemical strength of the pot, and a ban on all sales on the premises.

Schnarr says he's always on the lookout for the paranoid and 
overindulgent. "If I see people with a bowl trying to get stupid, 
I'll be like 'Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!' I'll boot 'em out of here pronto."

He describes the first time he felt the woozy effects of marijuana on 
his brain - while in the Army in the 1960s. He was leading a truck 
convoy in Southeast Asia when the men fled into a bunker to avoid enemy fire.

Someone handed him a smoke. He inhaled. Deeply.

Later, Schnarr staggered back to his truck.

"A guy said, 'Are you going to take the convoy?' And I said, 'I can't 
make any decisions right now. I'm too light-headed. I'm too relaxed.' "

Schnarr insists he's never smoked marijuana again.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom