Blogger-pundit Matt Yglesias really wants more bars. First at Think Progress, then at Slate and now at Vox, the commentator has waged a one-man rhetorical war on the country’s urban liquor boards. The current licensing system, in which the number of bars is constrained by city bureaucrats rather than market demand, Yglesias has argued, leaves us with a paucity of public drinking spots where they’re wanted. From New York’s East Village to Adams Morgan in Washington, D.C., license limitations have caused bars to become rare, expensive, crowded and all around worse. 
 
 There’s just one problem with Yglesias’ more-bars plan: alcohol. America has a serious issue with responsible drinking, and increasing the number of sales locations probably won’t help. Alcohol abuse already kills tens of thousands of Americans annually and costs hundreds of billions of dollars a year in lost productivity, health care and property damage. It’s an especially big problem for college students and other young people; Jake New reported for Insider Higher Education that at least eight college freshman died in the first few weeks of school this year, most in alcohol-related accidents or overdoses. “Over the last 10 years, we’ve seen a fairly dramatic increase of alcohol-related hospitalizations in this age group,” George Koob, the director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism at the National Institutes of Health, told New. More bars would contribute to what’s already a public health crisis. Studies in Los Angeles and Cleveland suggest adding a bar is associated with about three additional violent crimes a year. 
 
 It’s hard to imagine bars without alcohol. Caffeine is popular, but it’s not what economists call a substitute good for booze. Luckily, those aren’t our only options. In a post for Vox, German Lopez suggested that the strongest argument for marijuana legalization might be that people will use it instead of alcohol. Although prohibition has no doubt suppressed use, marijuana’s social costs per user are negligible, especially compared with alcohol’s. A recent National Institutes of Health study suggested that marijuana appears to fit the seven published criteria to be a substitute medication for alcohol, in the same way doctors prescribe methadone for heroin dependence. From a public health perspective, every drink we can replace with a toke is a victory. 
 
 Individual states, moved by a combination of hard evidence and shifting public opinion, are advancing with plans to legalize recreational marijuana use. So far, only Colorado and Washington have gone all the way to legalization, but the whole country is headed quickly in that direction. Despite all the new regulatory architectures for growing, distributing and using marijuana without violating the law, no states have been willing to propose what responsible common use in public could look like. Not one Amsterdam-style coffee shop has managed to keep its doors open. Still, there’s a demand for marijuana bars or weed cafes or whatever we end up calling them, a demand that’s being suppressed far more strongly than the demand for more alcohol bars. ||||| A Paris suicide bomber drank, smoked and ran a drug den, friends who visited the bar he ran have said. 
 
 Ibrahim Abdeslam, who blew himself up outside the Comptoir Voltaire café on Friday night during a terrorist rampage, enjoyed activities banned under Islamic law. 
 
 Abdeslam ran Les Beguines café in Rue des Beguines, Molenbeek, a poor district of Brussels notorious for Islamist extremism, from 2013 to August this year, when it was shut by the local commune due to drugs. It is now boarded up. 
 
 His brother Salah is now subject to an international manhunt, while another sibling, Mohammed, has been interviewed by police before being released. 
 
 A neighbour, who declined to be named, told the Telegraph: "Ibrahim was the proprietor, but the cafe is closed now. I used to go there every day after work, on my way home. We would go there to smoke hashish, drink alcohol, no problem. 
 
 “Ibrahim and I played cards together, we laughed and joked. He talked to everyone, he was very generous. I would have a drink and he would say don't worry about playing. I used to play cards with Salah too, he was often at the cafe. 
 
 “Ibrahim used to go to parties, he would drink alcohol, smoke. But he stopped drinking alcohol in the last year. 
 
 “Now I am scared because I talked to them, I know them. Everyone is disgusted and shocked. No one thought it was possible that it was them. " 
 
 Another man, aged 30, who lives just down the road from Les Beguines café said: “I used to play football with Salah, he played very well. He used to go out to a lot of parties. 
 
 "I also saw Ibrahim a lot at the cafe. They are good guys, like any other guys in this area." 
 
 A police raid in August found the bar was “used for the consumption of illegal hallucinogenic substances and had a strong smell of drugs and half smoked joints at the tables,” according to the closure order posted on the front door. 
 
 “The bar appears to be a point where you can buy and consume drugs, causing problems for the neighbourhood and public order in general,” the order said. 
 
 During the raid customers were found with drugs and five were booked by police for possession, the order said. 
 
 The requirement to close came into force last week but locals said Ibrahim had sold the bar after the police raid, and made “a lot of money”. 
 
 The Belgian newspaper L'Echo reported that Les Beguines cafe was set up by Ibrahim in March 2013, who remained the majority shareholder, according to company records. 
 
 His brother Saleh, who has been dubbed 'the most wanted manin Europe', was a manager at the cafe. 
 
 He chaired the most recent general meeting on September 30, documents reveal, at which he and another family member resigned from the business. 
 
 Ibrahim, who seriously injured a bystander when he detonated his suicide bomb, rented a Seat Leon used in the attacks. 
 
 The car was used by the terrorists who murdered diners outside the Casa Nostra pizza restaurant and the La Belle Équipe cafe. 
 
 It was later found abandoned with a cache of weapons inside. 
 
 The area has been described as an “airbase” for jihadists, and has been linked to plots including the 2004 Madrid bombing, the 2014 Jewish Museum shooting and this year’s botched attack on a Thalys commuter train. 
 
 Jan Jambon, the Belgian interior minister, this week vowed to “clean up” the area, saying that the government had lost control of it. ||||| Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images 
 
 An interesting thing happened in my neighborhood recently. A small posse of local busybodies organized as the Shaw Dupont Citizens Alliance proposed a moratorium on new liquor licenses for the increasingly vibrant nightlife corridors on 14th Street and U Street in Washington, D.C. Similar moratoria already constrain longer-established D.C. drinking hubs, and when I heard about the Shaw Dupont proposal, initially I felt despondent. But, in fact, the NIMBYs look set to lose. A guy named Michael Hamilton founded a counter-group called In My Backyard—D.C. to argue for growth-friendly policies. At a neighborhood listening session, moratorium proponents were vastly outnumbered. For now it looks as if Logan Circle and U Street will continue to be safe for entrepreneurs who want to turn vacant storefronts and derelict structures into bars and restaurants. 
 
 Similar fights play out in cities all around the country but not always with the same happy outcome. Almost invariably, these fights give the extreme deference to the concerns of immediate neighbors. But this deference has a cost for everyone else. Cities need to recognize that bars and restaurants are not the ugly stepchildren of the modern urban economy: They are its greatest strength. They spur small-business growth and creation citywide. When cities consider whether to allow them, they should think about the overall benefits to the region, not the particular complaints of near neighbors. 
 
 My neighborhood is hardly the only nightlife cluster in urban America featuring a version of this controversy. Last fall a group of residents of the Lower East Side in New York—some oddly appropriating the “Occupy” brand—tried to bring a halt to the issuance of new liquor licenses. Chicago has areas that have voted to become completely “dry” and moratorium zones where existing businesses stay open but no new liquor licenses can be issued. In California, many whole counties—including all of San Francisco—have gone into moratorium status. 
 
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 Proponents of curtailing licenses typically cite local nuisance effects as the key reason. One of the Lower East Side anti-booze crusaders was quoted as worrying about a “Wild West atmosphere.” In Washington, agitators cite the nightmare of becoming “the next Adams-Morgan”—while the actual Adams-Morgan is itself one of the areas operating under a moratorium. 
 
 These complaints ought to be understood in the larger context of urban economics. Moratorium boosters often seem to think there’s something unnatural about the heavy concentration of booze-serving establishments in a single area. They also think restricting bars and restaurants will cause the kind of thriving local retail they remember from old Jane Jacobs books to magically appear. 
 
 In reality, there’s nothing particularly unusual about similar firms clustering together. Auto companies were all near Detroit for a long time; high-tech firms huddle in the Bay Area; And nightlife hubs arise for similar reasons. Drinking and dining establishments want to be where people are likely to look for them. And people want to go to places where they’ll find options. Complicated interdependencies and complementarities can arise. The late-night pizza joint’s proximity to the dive bar increases the value of both. Alternatively, you might want to meet friends for dinner in a neighborhood where you’re also likely to be able to grab a drink afterwards. Theaters and live-music venues benefit from proximity to other after-hours activities and also drive customers to bars and restaurants. Forcing the cluster to disperse destroys its value. Preventing new firms from entering the cluster fosters high prices and mediocrity, as underperforming bars and restaurants can essentially free-ride on the rest of the cluster. 
 
 Providing these kinds of dense networks of related but independent small undertakings is exactly what cities are good at. 
 
 What they’re not so good at is playing host to modern retailers. Traditional urban neighborhoods feature old buildings with small, often irregularly shaped spaces that are ill-suited to the needs of contemporary retail chains. Refusing to grant liquor licenses won't undo the decades of history that brought us big-box stores.* It just leads to empty storefronts and car rides out to Ikea or Costco. The good news for cities is that lately Amazon has been crushing the big-box sector, and e-commerce levels the shopping playing field between traditional urban neighborhoods and suburban ones. And those smallish and idiosyncratic structures are ideal spaces for bars and restaurants—much better than personality-free malls. Even better is that the Internet isn’t going to put restaurants out of business, for obvious reasons. 
 
 Under the circumstances, promoting the development and expansion of nightlife hubs should be a key economic development priority for cities. Or, rather, preventing neighborhood busybodies from stifling them ought to be. That means making decisions about liquor-licensing rules at a higher level, with consideration of the full citywide effects in terms of tax revenue and job creation. And it means attempting to directly address perceived problems with crime and trash. Instead of refusing to issue new liquor licenses, why not send more cops and offer more frequent street cleaning in the hubs? Food service isn’t the sexiest sector in the economy. But it’s one that every city can be strong in. It also provides great opportunities for locally owned businesses, and meaningful opportunities for people with limited formal education to work their way up the ladder and go into business for themselves. Cities need to treat it as a more serious matter than a simple question of neighborhood opinion. ||||| Marijuana (AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh) (Photo: AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh) 
 
 WASHINGTON — Recreational use of marijuana becomes legal in the nation's capital Thursday. 
 
 In November, District of Columbia voters approved Initiative 71, which legalized recreational pot use. The District joins Alaska, Colorado and Washington state in making the drug legal. 
 
 As of 12:01 a.m. Thursday, persons 21 and older can: 
 
 • Possess 2 ounces or less of marijuana; 
 
 • Share 1 ounce or less with another person at least 21 years old, as long as no money, goods or services change hands; 
 
 • Cultivate up to six marijuana plants, but have no more than three mature plants, in their primary home; and 
 
 • Use marijuana on private property. 
 
 District residents cannot smoke or otherwise consume marijuana in a public space, including at restaurants, bars and coffee shops, or on any federal property. Public housing tenants cannot smoke weed in their homes, because they are government owned. Marijuana users are not allowed to operate a vehicle or boat under the influence of the drug. 
 
 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE DC can't use taxpayer money to regulate the sale of pot 
 
 But people still can't buy marijuana in the District. What? 
 
 After voters approved Initiative 71, Congress stepped in, forbidding the District to enact any regulatory framework for the sale or taxation of pot. So, for now, marijuana cannot be sold or taxed. As the city says on its website: home grow; home use. 
 
 The penalty for an individual arrested for smoking or consuming marijuana in public can be up to 60 days in jail or a $500 fine. Restaurant and business owners that allow patrons to use marijuana could lose their business license and certificate of occupancy. 
 
 "We will uphold the letter and the spirit of the initiative that was passed last year, and we will establish the Initiative 71 Task Force to coordinate our enforcement, awareness and engagement efforts and address policy questions as they arise," District Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a statement. 
 
 Bowser named Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier and Department of Health Director LaQuandra Nesbitt to head up the task force. 
 
 The mayor's office says Bowser will "put forward emergency legislation to clarify that the law does not allow private clubs to provide marijuana to their patrons." 
 
 Marijuana legalization advocates say about 50,000 D.C. residents have marijuana arrest records that affect their employment chances. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1BwIx81 ||||| People attend the Denver 420 Rally, the world's largest celebration of both the legalization of cannabis and cannabis culture, May 21, 2016 in Denver Coloroado. (Photo credit should read JASON CONNOLLY/AFP/Getty Images) 
 
 DENVER, Colo. -- Denver voters decided to push the boundaries of marijuana law by passing ordinance 300 in this year’s election, which opens the possibility of designated areas where marijuana can be used at places of business. 
 
 The idea was supported by many of the same people who helped campaign for Amendment 64, which made Colorado the first state in the nation to legalize recreational marijuana. 
 
 When Amendment 64 passed, it was clear that there wouldn’t be many places where people could legally use marijuana besides their own homes. The amendment included language spelling out that it did not authorize the use of pot openly and publicly. 
 
 The new ordinance is designed to change that—allowing people to gather and use marijuana in businesses that obtain special permits. 
 
 But there are a lot of hoops for a business to jump through before it can legally allow people to light up a joint or start munching on edibles. 
 
 Here’s a practical guide to Denver’s new law: 
 
 THERE WON’T BE ‘HASH BARS’ IN DENVER 
 
 Colorado’s state marijuana laws ban consumption at retail locations, which means you shouldn’t expect Amsterdam-style hash bars in Denver. 
 
 While it’s theoretically possible for a social use business to locate near a marijuana store, they would need to be separate businesses, each with their own regulations to abide by. 
 
 Aside from that, there aren’t many restrictions on the types of businesses that can apply for a social use license. 
 
 It’s possible you’ll see pot patios popping up in coffee shops, restaurants, or bars in Denver. 
 
 In contrast with Amsterdam’s hash bars where alcohol cannot be sold, Denver’s social use ordinance would not ban the sale of alcohol in locations open to marijuana consumption. 
 
 However, limiting or banning alcohol consumption can be made part of the agreement with neighborhood groups (more on the role they play below) for each specific social use license. 
 
 Colorado law also bans people from selling pot to each other—you could show up to a social use establishment with some marijuana to share with your friends, but you could get busted if you try to sell any to people. 
 
 SMOKING NEEDS TO BE OUT OF SIGHT 
 
 You shouldn’t expect to see pot smoking areas when you’re walking down the street in Denver. 
 
 The ordinance spells out that “any outside smoking of cannabis occurring at street level is not visible from a public right-of-way or a place where children congregate.” 
 
 Consumption areas would be off-limits to anybody under the age of 21. 
 
 The businesses will also have to abide by the Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act, which bans smoking in the vast majority of indoor areas. However, it’s theoretically possible for an indoor marijuana smoking area to open in a licensed cigar bar. 
 
 It’s also possible for businesses to create indoor consumption areas not meant for smoking, but rather for marijuana vaping or edibles consumption. 
 
 The statute also requires the social use business to make “reasonable accommodations” to prevent the odor of marijuana from reaching people outside. 
 
 YOU NEED TO GET OTHERS ON BOARD 
 
 One of the prominently-advertised aspects of initiative 300 is the requirement that businesses show “evidence of community support” in order to get a social use license. 
 
 A business would do this by partnering with an “eligible neighborhood organization.” 
 
 This may seem difficult, but even though Denver has 78 official neighborhoods, the number of registered neighborhood organizations (RNO’s) in the city is nearly 200. RNO’s are not difficult to create and are allowed to draw their own boundaries with no ban on overlapping each other. 
 
 For reference, the 9NEWS studios are located in a part of the city covered by 8 different RNO’s. 
 
 Alternatively, businesses trying to get a social use permit can get permission from a business improvement district or any other group the city deems eligible as a partner. 
 
 THE RULES MAY BE DIFFERENT AT EACH BUSINESS 
 
 In order to get a permit, social use establishments and neighborhood groups would be allowed to reach an agreement with rules tailored for each specific license. 
 
 They can put virtually any restriction imaginable into the license. 
 
 The new Denver law specifically envisions agreements that: 
 
 limit or ban alcohol consumption 
 
 have rules to prevent DUI cases, including requiring the business to offer patrons free rides home 
 
 establish company policy in running the establishment 
 
 control odor 
 
 restrict advertising 
 
 regulate the distance of consumption areas from public spaces 
 
 create more restrictive hours of operation (None of the social use establishments will be allowed to operate between 2:00 am and 7:00 am) 
 
 These rules can be made into official city restrictions on an individual license, each written to tailor to the agreement between the business and its partnering neighborhood group. 
 
 In addition, each business will be required to submit a written operations plan to the city describing how it will prevent underage people from gaining access and how it will train its employees. 
 
 
 
 Copyright 2016 KUSA
– Malcolm Harris doesn't have a problem with more bars—he just thinks those bars should sell pot, not alcohol. In an opinion piece for Al-Jazeera America, Harris offers his take on how marijuana bars would give Americans more palatable gathering spaces with fewer health risks, creating an "urban-planning win-win" and possibly even saving lives. Some highlights: Harris points out the 88,000 deaths annually from excessive alcohol use as noted by the CDC and the "hundreds of billions of dollars a year in lost productivity, health care, and property damage" that the National Institutes of Health has researched. Citing another NIH study, Harris says that pot would serve as an acceptable "substitute medication" for booze: "From a public health perspective, every drink we can replace with a toke is a victory." There are few places these days that resemble the famous bar from Cheers. "Fewer and fewer people have a third place (not work or home) where everyone knows their name," Harris writes. Because so many people have migrated to the suburbs and holed up with their cable TV and Internet, not as many people are heading out to congregate. "These spaces [would] promote community integration, friendship, and extrafamilial networks of support," Harris notes. Although he's optimistic that "eventually Americans will have public places to go and get high with their friends," Harris thinks government should ease up on strict regulations. "Not one Amsterdam-style coffee shop has managed to keep its doors open," he writes. "Though owners seem willing to conform to whatever guidelines they're given, so far, no locality wants to be the first to host an American marijuana bar." Harris also acknowledges some of the logistical hurdles that businesses may have to overcome. "One problem with weed bars is employees' right to a smoke-free workplace; even if cops allowed indoor marijuana smoking, no one would be allowed to work there," he writes. Click for his full piece.