Tourists looking to toke up without facing a ticket can now book a pot-friendly refuge in Chicago with just a few mouse clicks.
Bud and Breakfast, a Colorado-based booking platform similar to Airbnb, offers rentals to those planning ganja-based getaways to locales with legal weed. The website’s first listings in Illinois were added after the state legalized the drug for recreational use on Jan. 1.
“Some of the accommodations in Chicago are getting booked every day,” said CEO Sean Roby, who noted that around 20 different locations have been posted on the site.
Given that most downtown hotels have banned the use of cannabis and the city hasn’t approved rules for public consumption spaces, Bud and Breakfast could fill a void for travelers seeking high times in Chicago. After launching Bud and Breakfast in 2013, Roby found that visitors were often facing fines from hotels or tickets for publicly getting high when Colorado legalized weed a year later.
“The whole reason for Bud and Breakfast is to provide a safe and legal haven,” he said.
Roby’s site currently boasts a handful of spots in Chicago, including a “high society” apartment in Wicker Park complete with “trendy boho furnishings” and a shared patio — though it’s fine to spark up inside. A one-night rental runs $140.
Andy Seeger — an analyst at the Brightfield Group, a Loop-based cannabis research firm — said Illinois’ legalization law leaves room for traditional businesses to incorporate pot use.
“Hotels, [bed and breakfasts], yoga studios, event spaces and others are finding ways to cater to and bring together a still nascent cannabis culture,” Seeger added. “Local consumers, and certainly the out-of-state customer, are looking for the industry to guide them.”
In Galena, three hours northwest of Chicago near the Wisconsin and Iowa borders, the Aldrich Guest House touts itself as “Illinois’ first and only cannabis friendly bed and breakfast.” For $150 a night, guests get a room, a complimentary breakfast, free drinks at happy hour and other accommodations.
Cannabis users are free to smoke inside a furnished shed with heating, air conditioning and a television “for streaming funny YouTube videos.”
“[T]here’s even a snack bar in it because we all know food is a completely different experience when high,” a Bud and Breakfast post says.
Like those hosts, Roby said most folks putting their properties up for rent play to the stoner set. Some offer cannabis massages or yoga, while others offer various pot-centric experiences like joint rolling classes.
“Most of the hosts are Wikipedias of cannabis,” he added. “They’re going to be able to tell you what to do, where to go, what dispensary’s the best.”
In some cases, guests are even given a bag of green as soon as they check in, said Roby. That’s because visitors tend to purchase too much weed and leave what’s left with their host, who typically “pays it forward” by gifting it to the next renter or cooking a cannabis-infused meal.
