Senate debates drive-up windows for cannabis shops

Efforts to outlaw drive-up windows at cannabis retail businesses in New Mexico fell one vote short in the state Senate this week, as a bill proposing various changes in the state’s Cannabis Regulation Act is now up for debate in the state House.

A spokeswoman for the state Cannabis Control Division said Tuesday the agency does not collect data on the number of drive-up windows that might exist at cannabis retailers in New Mexico.

“The Division issues retail licenses and allows local jurisdictions to decide whether drive-up windows, among other zoning decisions, are permitted in their community,” spokeswoman Andrea Brown said.

The cannabis act enacted in 2021 permitted drive-up windows, but backers of an amendment to ban such windows drew comparisons to the years-long effort to ban drive-up liquor windows as the state battled DWI fatalities and crashes in the 1990s. The Legislature ultimately issued a ban on such sales in 1998.

During floor debate, Senate Judiciary Chairman Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, made an impassioned argument saying he recognized that alcohol use is different than cannabis use. But, he said, “they both impair driving.”

“They both create the potential for putting very dangerous people on our roads,” Cervantes said. “Why is it is worth the risk to make a few more bucks, to get a little more tax revenue? ... (Are) the sales so valuable that it’s worth even one life?”

The floor amendment to remove language in the bill that would ban drive-up windows was proposed by Sen. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, who said the state’s 83,000 medical marijuana users rely on drive-up windows at such businesses.

“These drive-thrus have provided the next level of convenience for these customers in the same way a drive-thru at a Walgreens is convenient for a medical customer getting any form of pain relief or help there,” said Steinborn before the vote.

Steinborn said the state has permitted the drive-ups in the two years since recreational marijuana use for those 21 and older over was legalized.

“You are proposing to take away a benefit to people,” Steinborn said. He added that the Cannabis Control Division hasn’t had any reports of problems with drive-thrus. Nor have New Mexico State Police.

He said drive-thrus are a “perceived problem that doesn’t exist.”

Another unsuccessful proposed amendment to the bill, SB 6, would have permitted, under certain circumstances, a moratorium on new licenses with input from the University of New Mexico Bureau of Business & Economic Research.