This Olympia bar is known for its marijuana club. But for now, you can’t drink there.

Frankie’s Bar and Grill, known in Olympia for its upstairs marijuana smoking room, can’t legally serve alcohol until early December because of a liquor license suspension issued by the state Liquor and Cannabis Board.

A Frankie’s employee said Thursday that the bar is closed for the time being. But the marijuana club, known as Friends of Frankie’s, remains open.

Business owner Frank Schnarrs did not immediately return a call from The Olympian for comment on Thursday.

The liquor license suspension stems from an earlier suspension during the summer of 2016, said Liquor and Cannabis Board spokesman Mikhail Carpenter. The board issued a five-day suspension that July, but Frankie’s Bar and Grill continued to serve alcohol during the suspension.

The Olympian received a hand-written fax on July 29, 2016 reading, “Frank’s Bar & Grill is OPEN for business w/a full service bar.”

Schnarrs said at the time that the Liquor and Cannabis Board didn’t have the authority to issue a liquor license suspension — that’s why he took down the notice and continued to serve alcohol.

“It was kind of ridiculous, the order that I had put on my window,” Schnarrs said in 2016. “It didn’t have my business name on it, it didn’t have my address, it didn’t have the RCW.”

The initial five-day suspension in July 2016 was the result of a ticket issued to the bar in 2015 when the Liquor and Cannabis Board learned that people had been smoking marijuana in an upstairs room.

The board issued two 40-day suspensions in August of last year after Frankie’s violated the five-day suspension, and after the board learned that people were still smoking marijuana on the premises, Carpenter said.

Schnarrs appealed the ruling, but the decision was upheld.

The two 40-day suspensions will run concurrently from Oct. 26 through Dec. 4. A large orange notice was taped to the inside of Frankie’s front door on Thursday afternoon.

Carpenter said the business may continue to operate during the suspension — Frankie’s may serve food and non-alcoholic beverages.

He said that he couldn’t speculate about what might happen if people continued to consume marijuana.

This story was originally published October 26, 2017 at 3:11 PM with the headline "This Olympia bar is known for its marijuana club. But for now, you can’t drink there.."