Millennials love Airbnb. Almost two-thirds of America’s current greatest generation prefer staying in someone’s spare living room (or in their second property, purchased for this purpose), instead of a hotel for accommodations when traveling, a recent survey showed.
And why not?
Instead of the Hilton, you can stay in a yurt, on board a pirate ship or in an art project. These are authentic experiences.
Millennials also love marijuana.
Love it. Seventy-one percent of people aged 18 to 35 in 2016—yes, some of us elderly millennials remember Seinfeld in its original run—told pollsters that they support legalization, according to Pew Research poll from last fall.
Thus it stands to reason when millennials visit Seattle, Denver or San Francisco in search of real connections to real people, they have a reasonable expectation of being able to smoke weed.
After all, it’s legal—and moreover, there are ample Airbnb listings (ranging from spartan to luxe) that advertise themselves as “420-friendly.”
So, do Airbnb and cannabis mix? The answer is that it all depends.
As Leafly News reported this week, Airbnb the company—the billion-dollar Silicon Valley darling—has no official policy on marijuana use. The San Francisco-based company has no policy at all on cannabis—smart policy, considering it’s an international firm, operating in areas with vastly differing cannabis laws.
For that reason, Airbnb has no “420 filter,” a company spokesman told Leafly, leaving would-be guests and marijuana-friendly hosts to figure it out on their own.
Which means, it’s all up to your Airbnb host to decide if you can hotbox Vincent van Gogh’s bedroom… mostly.
Airbnb hosts are free to set whatever house rules they please, within the bounds of reason and the law. If they want quiet time after 9 p.m., so be it. If they want house music in the geodesic dome from dusk til dawn, well—you signed up for it.
Same thing with smoking. If they prefer the ambiance of a 1970s social club, down to the fine layer of cigarette ash over the shag carpeting—cool! You can smoke. If not, you can’t. Take it outside—to the balcony, porch or roof, as the cases may be—or take it to the next city over.
(In case it needs mentioning: Airbnb guests would be advised to abide by house rules, seeing as how a poor rating from a host could lead to a sudden freeze-out from future stays and a sudden necessity for more Motel 6s in their lives.)
At the same time, Airbnb hosts in 420-friendly cities may not be able to allow you to smoke cannabis in their domicile even if they wanted to—especially if they’re renters. Landlords in several states, including California, have the right to ban smoking of all substances in their properties.
Meanwhile, the company and its host-partners fully recognize the demand for cannabis-friendly lodging options—particularly when hotels in places like Denver have forbidden marijuana use within their properties. And many Airbnb hosts have found themselves extraordinarily busy by taking advantage of this market inefficiency.
Here’s Leafly, on how the company kinda, sorta wants you to be able to find a home away from home where you can get stoned:
“…AirBnb recommends using an outside search engine such as Google to search for keyword combinations like ‘cannabis’ and ‘AirBnb’ in a specific location to turn up better results. You may need to try a few different searches, since some owners call their homes ‘420-friendly,’ others say ‘cannabis-friendly,’ still others say ‘green-friendly’ or ‘marijuana-friendly,’ and so on. Additional keywords to try include old-school euphemisms like ‘Mary Jane.'”
Or you can always go the old, old-fashioned route—and ask your host where you can smoke your cannabis. Maybe they’ll even have some local home-grown to share.
