Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Graham and Ashkahn light one up to honestly answer what they think about people coming into float centers high.
The guys share their experiences having Float On share a wall with a dispensary and the number of problems (or lack thereof) that it has caused over the course of many years.
Sit back, grab some munchies, and enjoy the ride with these guys.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: All right. Welcome everybody.
Ashkahn: Welcome.
Graham: How’s it going out there? Good. Good, us too.
Ashkahn: Yeah, definitely.
Graham: Yeah, we’re doing great.
Ashkahn: Pretty much just what’s happening over here.
Graham: I’m Graham.
Ashkahn: This is Ashkahn.
Graham: Today’s question is, “What do you think about people getting high and coming into your float center?” So, we thought that we’d actually get high while we answer this question as well.
Ashkahn: It seemed appropriate.
Graham: It’s legal here-
Ashkahn: Just so you know.
Graham: in Oregon. Yeah, we’re not breaking the law.
Ashkahn: Yeah. We like to go method for our answers here. Just like for UV ones, we expose ourselves to UV light before we answer those questions.
Graham: Yeah, absorb the beams subjectively as well as objectively. I mean, it’s cool, man. People float stoned or whatever. People can smoke and still do podcasts. Floating is even less crazy than podcasting.
Ashkahn: Yeah. I mean, I’m sure a humongous percentage of people float while stoned.
Graham: That wasn’t also my actual answer too. Even though I am smoking pot, I also feel the need to pretend be higher than I actually feel right now. What’s the concern? What are people worried about when they think of people coming in stoned, I guess? What’s the-
Ashkahn: Well, I mean there’s just kind of the whole general doing drugs in a float tank sort of thing.
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: Liability and the possible danger of someone coming in in an intoxicated state.
Graham: Then making it weird for their employees, or other customers, or having a pot induced panic attack in there, or something like that.
Ashkahn: I guess when we talk about this drug stuff, it’s not like we tell our customers, “You should blaze up and come in and float.”
Graham: Although, I do know center owners that definitely do say that to their customers.
Ashkahn: I mean, it’s not even really about legality … we don’t tell people to drink a bunch of alcohol while coming to float either, even though that is something that they could easily legally do.
Graham: Yeah. Also, I would never advise someone to do … That sounds way worse than coming in stoned.
Ashkahn: Yeah. I mean, yes. We do want people to realize that you’ve got to be safe in a float tank, and there are ways that things can go wrong and all that sort of stuff. The reality is that there’s just lots of people out there who smoke weed, and lots of people who smoke weed all the time and also do things like go into float tanks.
Graham: Yeah. I guess another concern … I mean, I suppose this is more on my side of why I don’t recommend it to people is because I like to encourage people to go into float without doing anything. Even if you get stoned all the time, floating is awesome. It’s a great thing to do totally sober. We don’t encourage people to … We don’t play music before people get in floats. We don’t encourage people to play their own music when they’re going in, especially for their first few times.
To me, it’s like pot is just another one of those things that I don’t … I like to encourage people to go in without anything, alcohol, pot, music, another person. Just go in pure. I guess I understand from that perspective as well.
Ashkahn: I know. I mean, for so many float tank questions, I feel like that is such a good answer. I feel like whatever people want to do in there, it’s nice to just understand what the float experience is and try it out. A lot of times, I think people will realize after floating and without anything that that was actually really enjoyable and that is in fact what they want to do.
Graham: Yeah. No, I agree. I guess there’s encouraging people, but then there’s also just let’s say someone shows up stoned at your float center. They’re not like out of their mind. They’re not bothering staff members, but their eyes are bright red and they smell a little of pot or something. Would we turn them away? Or should other people turn them away who aren’t us as well, I guess mixed into that question?
Ashkahn: Yeah. I mean, I feel like if someone is just really … If someone’s acting inappropriately or something like that, I think there’s just the difference between that and someone coming in and floating.
Graham: Yeah, like stoned. I guess even if someone were totally sober and acting like an asshole, I’d say, yeah, you have permission to not let them come in and float.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: If people are coming in high … First, let’s establish again for people who aren’t familiar with us, we’re in Portland, Oregon is where we run Float on. We literally have a dispensary 50 feet … Well, if you were able to travel through walls, it would be one foot from our float center.
Ashkahn: It’s directly behind us.
Graham: We share a wall with a dispensary. So, we have people who go back there before their floats, grab a pre-roll, smoke it, and then come in. That’s just our reality that we live in. Maybe we’re a little more anneared to it than other states or something, but honestly the number of problems that have come as a result of having obviously stoned people come in has been … I mean, I can’t think of a single one, like zero or very close to zero.
Ashkahn: Certainly for us, nothing has happened.
Graham: Yeah, exactly. Again, we’re in Portland, Oregon and we share a wall with a dispensary. Although we have people coming in stoned all the time, again, I can’t think of a single issue that we’ve actually had as a result of that kind of behavior.
Ashkahn: Yeah. I mean, I can’t even really think of many times people have come in who are just really overtly stoned out of their minds. I think most of the time if it’s happening, it’s not even … People are completely acting cool and normal, and nothing’s even apparent about anything about how they’re feeling or what’s going on.
Graham: It’d be way more irresponsible to run a podcast than go float high or something like that. I mean, hopefully you have people like Joe Rogan who obviously are huge promoters of float tanks, and huge stoners actively talk about doing things like edibles inside the float tank. So, there’s just this natural connection that people have probably regardless of where they are or where they live that might make them want to experiment around with this. Also, people who are really experienced floaters and really experienced stoners saying the two combined give them a better float experience.
So, there is a good chance that at least by allowing people to have kind of more of a safe space and, again, if they’re not causing problems, they just have red eyes or you suspect they might have smoked a joint before coming in, let them have their float. It might make them have an even, for them, more profound experience. Maybe they float and they’re like, “Why do I need to be high all the time?”, and they decide to give it up. Who knows what happens, but they didn’t disturb your business and the other people in the center feel comfortable. So, where’s the crime? Where’s the crime, Kahn?
Ashkahn: Tell it, yeah.
Graham: I guess there’s also, we have had people who actively smoked pot in their rooms before. I’ve gone to clean up a float room and had pot smoke wafting out of it.
Ashkahn: Yeah. It was a point where the dispensary behind us had their whole backroom right next to our float wall as well.
Graham: Yeah, yeah.
Ashkahn: So, one of our rooms just smelled like pot, because it was the wall sharing the back storage area of a dispensary.
Graham: I went out to take a succession of different coffee dates, and lunches, and stuff with customers just to kind of see what we could do better and things like that. One of the funny pieces of feedback I got was from a customer who said that she always requested Room Four because it always had this delightful smell of pot in it. She felt like maybe she was having a slightly enhanced float by being in that room specifically, which I thought was really funny feedback.
I mean, in my mind though, that’s … First of all, people are usually more responsible than actually lighting up inside the rooms themselves. To me, that’s kind of unacceptable behavior, but I don’t really know how to stop it. I’m not going to punish someone afterwards other than actually talking to them or writing them an email and saying, “Hey, please don’t smoke pot in our facility. That’s something you can do around the corner before you come in,” or something like that.
Yeah, I mean at that point, you are intruding on other guests’ experiences, and the smell of it is going kind of, as pot smell will, just everywhere. I wouldn’t ever encourage someone to get high in the facility.
Ashkahn: Yeah. It’s just such a widespread thing that people are doing that, to stop it, you’d have to be searching people’s bags. It would be so much more intense than anything you’d want to do to your customers coming in.
Graham: Yeah. Again, what are you going to do coming out? If it’s illegal in your state, call the cops on them after a float where they’d smoked pot in your room or something? It feels more like a problem with civility or just being a responsible person in someone else’s business than it seems like an actual issue that you need to be concerned about more than that. It seems like a case where a reprimand or just telling someone that’s not okay in your facilities is kind of the extent of it.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: This is good stuff. I guess that’s-
Ashkahn: So-
Graham: What else? Hey, Jordan? Is there anything else you want to hear about smoking pot in float tanks?
Jordan: Sounds great.
Graham: Our audio engineer says no, he’s fine. Cool.
Ashkahn: Yeah, I guess that’s it. We answered everything about it then.
Graham: Now we’re really high, so see what we’ll do with that. If you want us to answer more podcasts high, I guess let us know.
Ashkahn: Yeah, ask us questions-
Graham: If we absolutely should never smoke pot and get on the air again also, let us know.
Ashkahn: Or just ask us questions, and we’ll relate it to things that would be awesome to do. If someone was like, “What’s the most delicious sandwich in Portland?” We would go eat the most delicious sandwich on air, and it would be great for us. So, if you could please send in questions like that.
Graham: What is the most delicious sandwich in Portland?
Ashkahn: That’s a good question.
Graham: Well, join us next week … or tomorrow I mean? What are we weekly, Weekly Solutions Podcast?
Ashkahn: Tomorrow. It’s every day. It’s every day.
Jordan: That’s time.
Graham: All right. Thanks for listening everybody. Yeah, be chill out there.
Ashkahn: Yeah. We’ll talk to you later.
Graham: Don’t be all uptight.
Ashkahn: Don’t just … just drop it.
Graham: Wait, go to FloatTankSolutions.com/podcast, and send us in those things that we talked about sending in a second ago or whatever.
Ashkahn: Yeah. All right. Thanks.
Graham: Peace.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Understanding Chlorine Use in a Float Tank – DSP 174
This is another one of those questions that seems simple but as soon as Graham and Ashkahn start explaining a few things, you realize that there’s a lot of complicated information in the background. A “SSBASAGAASEAFTYRTTALOCIITB”, if you will.
The guys take this opportunity to deep dive on the complex conversation of chlorine and why it’s problematic for the float industry, along with several caveats of the benefits and usefulness of it as a disinfectant.
Should I Offer a Three Float Intro Pack? – DSP 173
Every float center has their own tricks to pricing, appealing to first time customers, and encouraging repeat business. One of the most common is using a three float intro pack that usually offers three floats at a 3 for the price of 2 package. Given how prevalent these are, do they work really well? Is this something that will soon become industry standard? What else needs to be considered before offering a package like this?
Graham and Ashkahn provide their thoughts on this pricing trend and how Float On does pricing (admittedly very differently than a three float intro pack) and what to consider for each float center that looks at this option.
What do You Love About Running a Float Center? – DSP 172
It’s easy to listen to this podcast, day in and day out, and think to yourself “why would ANYONE put up with all these issues?” Graham and Ashkahn describe what keeps them, and probably everybody in the industry, in the difficult business of putting strangers in salty boxes and the wonderful life changing experiences that come with it.
How is the Float Industry Different? – DSP 171
It’s possible that everyone in the float industry intuitively knows that it’s a different sort of business, but what are the tangible ways in which it’s different? As Ashkahn says at the start of the episode, every question in this podcast is kind of a long form answer to this question.
Graham and Ashkahn tackle this problem together, and answer everything from the practical to the philosophical, ranging from lack of expertise in the industry, to the sense of camaraderie that doesn’t seem to exist anywhere else.
When Should a Float Center be Profitable? – DSP 170
“When should I start making money?” is a deceptively simple and anxiety inducing question that every business owner has to face. Sometimes the answer is straightforward. There are lots of franchises that have near endless amounts of market research and profitability trends that point to a sensible timeline of when and how much you can expect versus a given investment.
Float centers aren’t like that, unfortunately. There’s simply not enough data out there to create predictability in a market. The good news is that given the relatively low overhead excluding opening costs, float centers have the potential to be profitable almost immediately. Graham and Ashkahn break down this question and provide some tips on the issue.
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