I was reading an article in the C.S.C.M. Club Quarterly
Summer 2018 magazine that was a dialogue on Cannabis legalization. The panel
for the discussion was a joke in my opinion; made up of only male, mostly middle-aged and
privileged W.A.P. GMs that have no known experience with Cannabis or its
sub-culture other than their periodic historical experience with it in respect
to the employer/employee relationship and enforcement of Club policies. Any
expertise they may have beyond that certainly was not evident in the article. I
want to get back into the Club business at least in part to shake up and help
dispel the absurd rhetoric I am hearing and reading related to Cannabis and
it's potential negative impact on Clubs and the workplace.
GMs who hang out in hospitality suites at conferences and
base a large part of their professional careers promoting and encouraging
alcohol sales at their Clubs, as well as often participating in the consumption
of those mind and motor-function altering libations themselves, are being
massive hypocrites when they disregard that reality and say they see no place
for Cannabis in their "family" oriented Clubs today. So, alcohol
sales support healthy family values but Cannabis product sales don't? Is that
your argument, really? What those individuals demonstrated through their
dialogue is only how sadly misinformed the "establishment" and some
of its more antiquated guardians really are and how closed-minded the Club
industry's "leaders" as a whole really are. Under-informed and
misinformed people default to the fear-mongering, stereotyping and cautionary
messaging conveyed by that dialogue. It baffles my mind why the Society would
turn to such clearly under-qualified and poorly informed people to record a
dialogue on the subject of recreational
Cannabis with in the first place?
Open-minded GMs don't have time for that nonsense. They
are too busy researching this relatively new multi-billion dollar industry to
investigate ways in which the products and collateral influences and impacts of
this bud(ding) industry can serve to reduce expenses of operations and
contribute to products and services profits for the Club in years to come.
Open-minded GMs are aware that the private club industry they are a part of was
once a source for members of illegal liquor sales during the era of
prohibition, as well as healthy profits for Clubs. They are also cognizant of
the fact that the evolution of a taboo weed to a new market of legal products
has occurred as a result of many decades of its prevalence in society. Cannabis
is legal today because for decades Canadians have been using it for
recreational and medicinal reasons and the masses of those who are okay with
that has arrived at a time in history when their numbers are greater than those
who think it should remain prohibited. Open-minded GMs are not so pompous as to
presume that they now have some moral duty to act in the place of parents for
their members by deciding what should and should not be promoted, encouraged
and/or permitted at their Club.
Making legal profits for and reducing the operational
costs of Clubs is the responsibility of the GMs. The birth of a multi-billion
dollar industry with enormous untapped and still-to-be-discovered potential for
generating profits and reducing costs has arrived and some of the brightest
minds in our industry are dialoguing doubts, apprehensions and cautionary
rhetoric? Insert eye roll now. To closed-minded GMs I say, please proceed to
the golfers lounge, get a beer, wine or highball, and sit around judging and
mocking what you don't know anything to speak of about nor have any experience
with to speak of but clearly don't mind waxing eloquently, albeit ignorantly,
on about no less. As a wiser route to my way of thinking, I am welcoming the
opportunity to discover win/win Club policies and practices that will encourage
convenience, comfort and quality in the delivery of whatever products, events
and services members value and want. If that includes safe and convenient use
of Cannabis as a part of their recreational activities and enjoyments I am
going to look for ways to facilitate that and when and where possible make
profit for the Club in doing so.
When I am not working I will be golfing at courses that
do accommodate its use and there are millions of other golfers as well as
potential golfers and members who are likely to be inclined toward that freedom
of choice as well. Does anyone really think that by taking restrictive
attitudes and establishing restrictive policies against plant products that
it's estimated one in four Canadians have and/or do consume it is going to help
grow Club profits and memberships or the game of golf for that matter? I
suspect it is just the same closed-minded people reflected in the article's
dialogue that still feel that way. Fortunately their babble is nothing more
than page filler and is unlikely to have influenced anyone negatively who has
the capacity to embrace and be inclusive of new opportunities in the management
of today's Clubs.
