A tempest in a kava cup
Herbal bar owner, LHP clash over drink
They yell “Bula!” in unison, raise their mugs and take a sip.
Patrons of The Nak, a nonalcoholic bar in Boca Raton, were enjoying the fellowship Wednesday as they drank kava, a popular herb from the South Pacific.
“It relaxes you,” said Allie Veberino, 27. “It calms you down.”
But kava and another exotic herb sold by the bar, kratom, aren’t welcome everywhere in South Florida.
The Nak’s owner was mystified by the city of Lighthouse Point, which recently rejected his plan to open a second The Nak there.
Lighthouse Point said allowing a business that sold kava and kratom would violate its 2014 ban on designer drugs.
The city’s ban mirrors a number of designer-drug ordinances enacted by other local governments. They were responding to products that showed up on convenience store shelves years ago — with names like “Purple Diesel” and “Mr. Happy.”
These products, some known generically as spice and bath salts, mimicked the effects of illegal drugs but were not outright illegal because chemists had slightly altered the active ingredients.
In some places, kratom also began drawing concern.
The substance, with its opioid-like ef-
fects, has been scrutinized by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The federal agency planned to put it in the same classification as heroin and peyote, a class that indicates a high potential for abuse. But the agency halted its effort late last year.
Six states have banned kratom. While Florida allows it, Sarasota County enacted its own ban against it in 2013.
Kratom is “pretty safe” the way it has been used for more than 100 years in Southeast Asia, said Walter Prozialeck, the chairman of the Department of Pharmacology at the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine at Midwestern University.
The problem is kratom products that show up in the United States are unregulated and may be taken, either as a tea or an extract, at unsafe levels, said Prozialeck, a pharmacology professor.
Also, not a lot is known about how it interacts with other sedatives, stimulants or pharmaceuticals like Prozac. Whether it’s safe for teenagers, whose brains are still developing, or pregnant women, also isn’t known, he said.
Kratom, an extract derived from a tree native to Southeast Asia, is available in at least a dozen South Florida establishments.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement reports that neither kava nor kratom has been listed as a cause of death.
But Lighthouse Point Mayor Glenn Troast said what he saw on the internet about kava and kratom concerned him.
“There’s a lot of conflicting information out there,” he said.
The Nak’s owner, Jeffrey Bowman, said he had no idea that he might run afoul of Lighthouse Point’s rules earlier this year when he tried to open a kava bar on Federal Highway.
Bowman, who said he imported 16 tons of kava last year to the United States from the South Pacific, opened his first kava bar in Boca Raton in 2002. The Florida Atlantic University graduate discovered the elixir after a car accident, he said. He said he also helped start a kava bar in St. Petersburg, nowthe home of eight of them.
“When I had applied [in Lighthouse Point], I wrote down that I was selling hot and cold nonalcoholic beverages and dry retail goods and prepackaged snacks and drinks,” Bowman said. “It’s up to a city to figure out the classification of a business based on the items you are selling.”
Lighthouse Point’s zoning administrator gave him the initial go-ahead, he said, but it came grinding to a halt when the administrator noticed the architect’s notes that labeled the business a kava bar.
Thecity subsequently denied a permit, but Bowman said he’s going to appeal.
Lighthouse Point’s ban on designer drugs is too vague— to the point it could prohibit almost anything, according to Spencer Siegel, an attorney representing The Nak. The ban could prohibit supermarkets or natural food stores from selling St. John’s Wort, an herbal remedy for depression, or other herbal supplements, he said. “It doesn’t inform people of what they are trying to prevent,” he said. “They should be more specific about what they don’t want.”
Lighthouse Point may be the first city to deny a business permit over kava and kratom concerns, say the region’s kava bar operators.
Jared Orlinsky just opened Shells Kava Bar, Broward County’s westernmost kava bar, located on University Drive in Lauderhill.
“Every city should have a kava bar,” he said.