From cannabis lounges to traffic stops, the Nevada Legislature tackled a lot of issues during this past legislative session.

Well, this week on Nevada Week, we examine three new laws and their impact on Nevadans.

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(Kipp Ortenburger) In this past legislative session, lawmakers addressed problems ranging from state budgets to healthcare.

Well, this week on Nevada Week, we'll examine three very important bills passed by the legislature, including the decriminalization of traffic stops and new laws that address concerns of Nevada's Indigenous people.

But we start with the law that allows cannabis lounges to be set up in the state.

The Nevada Week team looked into how the lounges will work and what they mean for the growing cannabis industry.

Legalized cannabis went on sale in Nevada in July 2017; however, the ballot question passed by voters in 2016 allowing its sale only let people consume marijuana in their homes.

That left a big problem for visitors to the city who didn't have a place to legally consume it.

We definitely used to get a lot of questions from customers, especially out-of-town customers, about where they could legally consume.

Lissa Lawatsch is the general manager of Oasis Cannabis, a dispensary a few blocks off the Las Vegas Strip.

(Lissa Lawatsch) When we would have tourists that came into town and asked where they could legally consume, we just have to guide them and let them know that there really isn't a place for them to legally consume so they have to use their best judgment in trying to find that place.

That problem was solved this year with Assembly Bill 341, which the legislature passed and Governor Steve Sisolak signed.

(Dani Baranowski) Prior to this bill, there was no place where tourists or locals could legally consume unless they owned their own home, and patients and consumers deserve access.

Dani Baranowski is vice president and cofounder of the Chamber of Cannabis.

She believes the new law helps address a problem for tourists and locals alike.

We're thinking about the Las Vegas Strip.

I think if you walked down it, you can smell the cannabis, and that is because no one has an opportunity or nowhere to consume it.

The new law goes into effect in October.

Cities and counties will make their own rules for the new lounges, but there will be restrictions on where they can be set up.

We reached out to Metro for comment about the new lounges, but since the rules for the new businesses haven't been established, they did not want to comment.

The new lounges will have to go through an approval process through the state's Cannabis Compliance Board.

Some of the new lounge licenses will be set aside for applicants considered "social equity applicants."

The failed war on drugs has resulted in detrimental harm to a lot of different communities, especially minorities, people of color.

The exact definition of social equity applicants is up to the cannabis board, but Baranowski says it's important that past inequalities surrounding cannabis are corrected.

Lawatsch's dispensary is already planning on opening a consumption lounge in an attached building.

The plan is to have people buy here at Oasis and be able to be steps away from a consumption lounge once they buy.

She believes the new law will allow the multimillion-dollar industry to grow even more.

Consumption lounges really bring another area of growth for the cannabis industry.

This means more jobs, more opportunity to really normalize cannabis overall.

For Baranowski, the lounges are a chance to prove to the country that Nevada knows how to regulate the once-illegal substance.

Yes, it's been done in California but nobody does it like Vegas does, so for our industry that we are literally building day by day putting out the bricks, we are going to show the country and also internationally that we are going to be the gold standard.

For Nevada Week, I'm Heather Caputo.

Thank you so much, Heather.

Lawmakers in Carson City passed and Governor Steve Sisolak signed a number of bills important to Nevada's Indigenous communities.

The lawmaker who sponsored those bills is Assemblyman Howard Watts, a Democrat from Las Vegas.

Assemblyman Watts, thank you so much.

We really appreciate having you here.

-Thanks for having me, Kipp.

-Absolutely.

And I want to jump right in, and let's talk about Assembly Bill 88, something you sponsored, very important to Indigenous populations, and a lot of provisions in that bill which is, you know, something that we see a lot at the state level.

What exactly is this bill going to do?

(Howard Watts) Thanks.

So Assembly Bill 88 does have a lot to it, but it all kind of falls under the general umbrella of addressing some of the racially discriminatory and derogatory aspects of our state's past.

One of the issues that had come up to me in conversations with Indigenous leaders is concerns about the use of Native American mascots and team names and the impact that's had.

We've seen those discussions held even at a national level with some of the pro sports teams renaming.

We have a couple of teams here in the state of Nevada that use some of that imagery, and I wanted to put a policy into place that would have school districts look at those names and change them if they're found to be insensitive but also to have a process where, you know, there may be schools that primarily serve Indigenous students or located on tribal lands, so what we wanted to also do is facilitate a conversation between schools and Indigenous communities and if there's a representation that works for those communities, then they could keep it.

So that was the first part of the bill, really dealing with schools, mascots and having a process and a conversation with the native communities.

The next piece of it, I'm a pretty avid outdoors person and, you know, I noticed and saw some research that indicated that there are many places that have names that feature racial slurs, and these cover a range of ethnicities, including "squaw" which is used in a lot of land place names but is considered by a lot of Indigenous people to be a derogatory term.

So we tasked our State Board on Geographic Names with looking at those places and coming up with recommendations, in collaboration with the public, to come up with more appropriate names and recognize that a lot of these places were named by Indigenous people before colonizers came in and renamed everything.

And then the last piece that actually came during the legislative session was concern about the siren in the town of Minden which is sounded to honor first responders but for many years operated in conjunction with an ordinance that told Native Americans they had to leave town by sunset, by 6:30 every day, and the siren went off at 6:00 every day essentially as kind of a 30-minute warning to vacate in the minds of many Indigenous people in the area.

So we added a provision to not have a siren or other bell rung at a time when it was associated with these sundowner ordinances.

We've heard a lot about these in the South where, you know, basically people of color, Black people, could not be in town after sunset.

Here in the West, we actually had many towns that did the same thing for Indigenous communities, so this law sought to move forward from that legacy.

-Let's start with the sundown sirens.

I think a lot of the public are probably surprised that this is something we're even talking about in our 81st legislative session.

We've had so much civil rights reform.

Why wasn't something like this covered in previous reform?

-Well, you know, again we are constantly evolving and moving forward and addressing the fact that, you know, we have a troubled past, and just as we had discrimination in the South and across the country against Black people, there's also significant discrimination against Native American people.

So there was an ordinance on the books that said Native Americans had to be out of these towns at 6:30.

You know, they were probably unconstitutional, but they weren't actually removed until the 1970s.

And then the relation that siren still had to people in the Washoe tribe that lives in and around that community, and to them that siren still signifies that warning it's time to leave.

So there's a lot of trauma there, and that's something we were trying to address with that bill.

-And you mentioned the siren still exists.

It's just at a different time now in Minden; is that correct?

-Yes.

So the Washoe tribe has been trying for a long time to negotiate with the town of Minden to move the sounding of that siren to a time that they feel would be more appropriate, and after this bill was passed and signed into law, they finally reached an agreement to move the time further away from that 6:00, 30-minute warning to get out before sundown.

-And as you mentioned before, this is very important because this is not the law is this and it is a definitive ban on some of these things.

This is about negotiating with some of the Indigenous communities to come to an agreement.

And I want to go to the first part of the bill you talked about too, a decision-making process for a name or potentially a mascot.

You mentioned school districts then.

Is it falling on their board of trustees to make these decisions?

-Yes.

So I did get some people that reached out and expressed their displeasure and thought that I was choosing single-handedly what mascots or team names were going to exist or not.

It's not for me to decide.

What we wanted to do is have every school district create a policy where if somebody feels that a name or identifier for a team is inappropriate, they could bring something forward to the school district.

They would have an open, transparent process to discuss it, to hear about, you know, the pros and cons and perspective and then be able to make a decision on it because a lot of the problems have happened because there wasn't a process in place.

Also, we explicitly brought tribal communities into that conversation so they could agree to continue a use that's related to Native Americans if they felt it was okay and respectful.

So that's also not only respecting the tribes' sovereignty as their own nation but also including them and bringing them into the conversation.

And I think that was something that we did a lot of work on during the legislature in general in terms of trying to bring Indigenous voices into our different governance processes a lot more because it's something that honestly we haven't done a great job about historically.

-Let's talk about those Indigenous voices.

This is very, very important.

Of course we're talking about a very specific bill that impacts Indigenous populations as you mentioned, inclusive to other ethnicities as well.

A lot of bigger bills passed, more wide-reaching bills.

Were there some bills particularly you think really impact Indigenous communities that aren't necessarily directly related to Indigenous communities?

-Sure.

Well, one that I can think of for sure is some of the voting rights legislation that's been passed.

You know, we made some of the changes to mail everybody a ballot while keeping our early vote system permanent, and that just makes sure everyone has options, and some of these tribal reservations are fairly remote.

We've worked to try and make it easier for them to get in-person polling places so they don't have to drive sometimes hours to another community.

But making sure that everyone gets a mail ballot without having to request one, you know, I think that adds to increasing access to civic engagement for those communities which we've heard a lot is very important.

We expanded our automatic voter registration system and allow potentially tribal agencies to become automatic voter registration entities so that as people are interacting with their tribal governments, their voter registration is getting entered into the system or updated when they move.

Again, that makes sure they're getting information about the elections that are happening.

So that's one example that I can think of that's really important.

You know, our investments in education are hugely important.

There was a bill specifically to create a tuition waiver program for Indigenous people in the state, but I think all of our investments in education are another huge thing that we can do to help Indigenous communities here in the state.

-And as you mentioned, a lot of moves legislatively towards education in our last session as well.

We've got about a minute left.

Let's talk about the future and some key issues that you're looking at for our next legislative session potentially, or the next couple.

-You know, I think when it comes to Indigenous issues, first of all I'd love to see some more Indigenous representation in the legislature, so I think that's important.

You know, I think again continuing to work on issues related to education and to work on issues related to healthcare are critical next steps to help make sure that we're addressing some of the legacy with our Indigenous communities and continuing to have these conversations about the practices of the past and making sure we're adjusting for the future.

-Assemblyman Watts, thank you so much.

We really appreciate your time.

-Thanks for having me again, Kipp.

-Besides legalizing cannabis lounges and addressing the needs of Nevada's Native American communities, lawmakers decriminalized some types of traffic stops.

Our Nevada Week team talked to Chuck Callaway from Las Vegas Metro Police about the new law.

(Chuck Callaway) Assembly Bill 116 makes most traffic offenses civil infractions rather than criminal infractions, which they currently are under the law.

Under AB 116, rolling through a stop sign or minor speeding will be a civil citation, but more serious traffic offenses like DUI will still be criminal.

If we see someone violating the law whether they're, you know, in a vehicle speeding or whatever their actions are-- especially if it rises to the level where it's a safety issue, our officers are going to enforce that and take action regardless of whether it's a civil infraction or whether it's a criminal infraction.

The law doesn't prevent officers from pulling someone over.

The demerit system is also still in place, which means bad drivers will still face consequences like having their licenses taken away.

Key provisions in the law don't go into effect until 2023.

Metro will continue to enforce traffic violations as criminal for the time being.

We're going to be preparing for this and changing our policies and educating our officers so when the date does arrive, we'll be prepared to switch over to the civil infraction mode.

Supporters of the law argued a criminal charge for a minor traffic violation can lead to a cycle of fines, fees and possible jail time for a minor infraction.

Callaway agreed that changing the law is a better approach.

In the big scheme of things, it makes sense to make these a civil infraction.

A lot of other states have gone that way and done it, and we're one of a few that haven't gone that direction.

But as far as the revolving door you're talking about, I do think that when people get incarcerated for a traffic offense, it can affect their work and can affect their livelihood.

Under the law, people who get a traffic citation will still have to pay a fine but the fines and fees are capped.

For Nevada Week, I'm Natalie Cullen.

For those looking to reform the criminal justice system, this was a very big step.

Joining us to talk about what it means for those larger efforts is Michelle Rindels, a reporter with the Nevada Independent.

Michelle, thank you so much for joining us again.

We really appreciate it, virtually of course.

I need to note that you are traveling around the state.

We promise we will have you in-studio at some point in the future.

But let's get to this bill right here, and why is this bill so important to advocates of criminal justice here in the state?

(Michelle Rindels) Yes.

So advocates are really concerned that we've created a system that's like a debtors prison, and if you're poor and you just can't pay the traffic ticket or you decide to pay your rent instead of your overdue traffic ticket, you're liable to get stopped by the police, get picked up, be sent to jail and have an even larger problem on your hands.

You know, that's potentially losing your job or being away from your children with no childcare.

So people have been working on this for the better part of a decade, trying to get away from a system where a traffic ticket that's unpaid could escalate into an arrest and get you in jail.

They finally succeeded on the fifth try in the 2021 session that just ended, and folks are hoping that, you know, if you can take some of these lower-level offenses and just have them addressed by a fine and a collection agency, at least we're not considering taking people's freedom and potentially livelihood away over a taillight or a cell phone while driving violation.

-Yes, and let's talk about this aspect of the cost of traffic tickets here, and as you said there really is a struggle here of exactly what do you pay for.

Let's specifically talk about then this economic justice aspect of this.

This bill isn't doing anything, I don't think, to reduce the amount of penalties that you might incur in traffic violations, or is it?

-There is a cap that the fines can't be more than $500, but I'm not sure if that's really a dramatic change from what we see in the law.

It's just more about kind of eliminating this possibility of a bench warrant which is, you know, just when you fail to pay on time, maybe forget about it, maybe you didn't have enough reminders or just were not organized, and that can escalate into an arrest that actually sends you to jail even though the police would probably not arrest you just in normal circumstances on some of these lower-level issues.

-And the bill and that provision you're mentioning right there, the bench warrants does not take effect until 2023.

Can you talk to us a little bit about what that means from now until then, and let's say that you don't have a bench warrant now but you do have a bench warrant sometime in 2022.

Is that still applicable then?

-Yes.

It's important that you don't think this is immediately effective because if you have a bench warrant that's out in your name, you could still get picked up in this intervening year and a half.

You could still go to jail over that.

On January 1, 2023, the bill says that courts are supposed to cancel all bench warrants that are outstanding.

My understanding is there's hundreds of thousands of these in Nevada.

They'll cancel them, but that's a year and a half away.

So anytime you're out on the road and you are stopped by police, you are liable to get arrested over this unpaid traffic ticket.

So you're advised to check.

You know, let's say you're in Las Vegas.

Check the Las Vegas Justice Court website and see if you have an outstanding warrant in your name.

If you remember that you had a ticket, you need to really address it before it actually does lead to this consequence or you're kind of playing the lottery there.

-Playing with the lottery, and let's talk about those that might be incarcerated from warrants and then into incarceration then.

Is there any provision in the bill that if you are unfortunately in jail over this, again when this bill takes effect, this part of the bill takes effect in 2023, does that then release you from prison?

-You know, I think on January 1, 2023, the warrants are cancelled.

I'm not sure if you're actually in jail on New Year's Eve, what that means for you in this situation.

But I think one of the important things to take into account is that potentially some jurisdictions are going to start moving towards this paradigm earlier than the bill says they absolutely have to.

You know, prosecutors in the intervening time have the latitude to kind of treat these with more grace than they have been previously kind of in anticipation that this is the policy of the state of Nevada.

There's this year-and-a-half amount of time that courts and municipal governments are given time to make this adjustment, but this is the direction the state is heading so I think we may see some jurisdictions start to sort of implement these practices earlier than January 1, 2023.

-It would make sense, and then it's just flipping the switch on January 1, 2023 as you mentioned.

But I guess that leads to the question of what kind of burden is this putting on municipal governments?

What kind of burden is this maybe putting on the courts both in the transition here but then once we do reach January 1, 2023, is this a more-increased burden or a less-increased burden for municipal governments?

-So this was the sticking point and really has been the big sticking point over the past decade that this legislation kind of has been in play is what is the effect going to be on local governments that really depend on having the possibility of jail kind of as a prospect to incentivize people to pay their traffic tickets.

So a lot of the municipal governments did submit estimates to the legislature that say oh, it's going to cost $20 million because we're going to have no power to collect any of these traffic tickets.

People are just going to blow them off.

You know, I think that advocates will say people are not just going to ignore them.

It's not that they don't want to pay them, it's that they're having to make these tough decisions.

They also point to the idea that there could be collection agencies involved.

Proponents say Carson City has implemented a similar system as the bill calls for and has seen more collections come about because there's maybe someone reminding people that they have their debt outstanding.

You know, throughout the legislative session, there was a request on the table for fiscal notes, basically estimates of the bill's cost from these municipal governments.

They were updated and really took into account kind of cost savings from not arresting people and balancing that with maybe the cost of maybe not recouping all the fines that you have under the previous paradigm.

We really didn't get a lot of response to that kind of inquiry.

There weren't very many municipal governments that updated or ran that analysis, so I think it's still a big open question about what are the collection rates going to look like under this new paradigm?

There's also the implementation costs of kind of changing the computer systems and the ticketing systems to reflect this new law.

So there is a cost of making this transition.

I think advocates are really hoping they will ultimately see a savings in the cost that we spend really kind of throwing the book at people who have not paid their traffic tickets on time.

-Yes, so more and more efficient all the way around is what we're hoping for, and of course January 1, 2023 will tell us a lot more after that.

Michelle, thank you so much.

We really appreciate your time.

And thank you, as always, for joining us this week on Nevada Week.

For any of the resources discussed on this show, please visit our website at vegaspbs.org/nevada-week.

You can also find us on social media at @nevadaweek.

Thanks again, and we'll see you next week.

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