My first impression of the Betty Boop Cannabis Club in Barcelona was good, but that quickly changed and at this point I’ll never go back there. To be fair, the club does have a large variety of marijuana, edibles, some hash and even some pain salves. But overall my experience at Betty Boop isn’t something I’d like to repeat. However, your experience may be different, and if you live near Betty Boop this might be an okay club for you simply for location purposes.
Overall Rating for Betty Boop [author-post-rating]
CLICK HERE TO APPLY FOR MEMBERSHIP NOW
(This is a preliminary application process; not all who apply will qualify for membership based on Spanish law and club policy. Application for membership is general and is not necessarily applied to any particular club unless the applicant fully qualifies.)
First Impressions of Betty Boop Cannabis Club in Barcelona
Betty Boop has a modern entrance with some cool graphics on the doors. Once you’re buzzed in you’ll enter a small reception area. There was a young, friendly guy from Scotland manning the desk; he had me fill out a registration form on an iPad, then I paid 20 Euro to register. He buzzed me into the member’s area that opened into a bar on the left, and there was a large lounge in a room beyond the bar. Along the wall opposite the bar was a huge mural depicting a heavily tattooed Betty Boop tokin’ up in Barcelona.
It was hot and I started sweating badly; there was no air circulation and I could tell that people had been smoking joints laced with tobacco by the sweet and stale heaviness of the air. This was a little unexpected as I had become accustomed to the coffeeshops in Amsterdam, where most use exhaust systems and smoke eaters to keep the place clear. There were 4 guys in the lounge smoking and talking quietly, and one patron sat at the end of the bar. It was the middle of the day so I wasn’t surprised that it was dead in there; in fact, I had hoped for exactly this.
Betty Boop Marijuana Variety
In a glass-topped shadow box at the head of the bar was a selection of 12 strains of premium marijuana. The bartender or “budtender” recommended the Juanita and said it was an excellent local Spanish strain. I got a couple of grams of that, as well as 2 grams of Grapefruit and 2 grams of Acapulco Gold. I didn’t do a full marijuana strain review on these three types, but you can read about them and see some pictures in this post.
Betty Boop Marijuana Edibles
Betty Boop has an astonishing array of marijuana edibles. They ought to, as they employ the services of a professional chef who, according to the dispensado Agro, had gained a significant level of notoriety for his dishes at a prominent restaurant. Indeed, based on the items I saw and photographed, this guy knows what he’s doing. From cakes to brownies to cookies to sandwich cookies with cannabis cream, to muffins and even marijuana ice cream, Betty Boop has it all. I sampled a small teaspoon of the latter and it was delicious; purely flavored with marijuana alone. Yum! I didn’t sample any of the other items as I was on a tight budget, so I can’t vouch for their taste, but I can say that their presentation and appearance were impressive.
[one_half last=”no”]
[/one_half][one_half last=”yes”]
[/one_half] [one_half last=”no”]
[/one_half][one_half last=”yes”]
[/one_half]
Betty Boop Patrons
Only a few people came in and out of the club during the 3-4 hours I spent there over 2 different trips. Mostly they went right to the head of the bar, placed their order and left, but a few would stay for a couple of hits from a large bong on the bar.
Overall, Betty Boop is a pretty quiet place. But I did meet and interview one patron and the dispensado named Agro. The patron, a slender woman who was dwarfed by the bong she smoked from, hailed from New Jersey, USA, and spoke no Spanish. Even without Spanish Bonnie seemed comfortable enough at Betty Boop despite the fact that she had traveled to Barcelona alone with no schedule, plans or itinerary.
A svelte little creature, Bonnie was out searching the world for solace after her mother passed away this year. Her bravery had been rewarding her; in part due to her connection with Betty Boop. She recounted how she had made one friend at the club who invited her to Amsterdam for a few days; a strange trip that saw the pair separated inadvertently. Upon her return to Barcelona, Bonnie made her way back to Betty Boop and was fitting in just fine; the day I interviewed her she was heading out to Placa Reial with the Scottish lad who worked the front door.
She seemed happy when she left, and it’s safe to say that Betty Boop had a hand in that.
Betty Boop Staff & Owners
The budtender told me his name was Agro, but he hesitated before telling me so I’m not certain if that is his real name or a nickname, and I didn’t ask for clarification. I had met one of the owners of the club, Lynn, and gained permission to interview staff and patrons. That day things were slow at the club so Agro had time to chat from behind the bar.
One of the newest additions to the staff of Betty Boop, Agro had only been working there for 10 days, but said it was one of the best jobs he had held. An amateur photographer and long-boarder, he told me in good English that he greatly enjoyed the relaxed environment and interesting duties, but that his interactions with members of the club made the job truly rewarding.
I arranged an interview with the primary owner, “China,” for the following day at 2PM. Both Lynn and Agro told me that he was the brains of the operation and would be best able to answer my questions regarding regulations and other finer details. I also had some more unusual questions like ‘What do you do with the weed left after making hash?’ and ‘Is the marijuana grown here on the premises, and if so can I see it?’
The next day I arrived for the meeting a few minutes early and walked around the neighborhood until 2PM. I know that in Spain lateness is perfectly acceptable and often expected, but as an American I am always punctual. In any case, I wasn’t surprised to see a nearly empty club when I walked in. But this time, things were different.
Agro was finishing up providing some marijuana to a couple of patrons. I smiled and greeted him warmly but he only looked at me sullenly and grunted. I noted the change in disposition and sat down at the bar, thinking that maybe he was just having a bad day.
During our interview the day before, I had complained to Agro that I could not get good close-up photographs of marijuana using my Fujifilm camera. He recommended that I study my camera settings more closely. That evening I did as he advised and discovered some macro settings on the camera that enabled me to take photographs of some buds that were so fine you could see the resin hairs standing on end. So when the last members had pocketed their weed and shuffled out of the club, I thanked Agro for his advice and told him excitedly that it had worked. He pulled up a stool directly across from me and when he spoke his voice was shaking a little bit. He lit a cigarette or a joint or something and said;
“China will not be meeting with you. He read what you wrote and didn’t like it, so he don’t want to help you no more.”
I was taken aback. He was referring to an article I wrote about getting hash and weed in Barcelona where I had initially reviewed the hash and marijuana I had obtained in the city, which included my first experience at Betty Boop. I immediately apologized and asked what he didn’t like. Agro told me that I had written that the marijuana strain Juanita was an Indica when in reality it was a Sativa. I explained that the budtender who recommended it had told me it was an Indica and that’s what I put in my notes, but that in any case I would fix the mistake and update the article.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough.
Agro seemed quite upset; like I had offended him in some way, as he complained that I had written that it was hot in the club. He rambled on angrily about how the club was still waiting on permits to get additional air conditioners installed and so on.
Of course, I countered that it is indeed hot in the club and that it was hot at that very moment. He agreed but continued to explain why it was so hot. I tried to educate him that a review is a piece of writing based on the reviewer’s experience at the time, and that his excuses were not relevant to a timely review.
Agro then switched his argument to the fact that I had written that the club didn’t sell the marijuana strain White Widow, which is one of my favorites. I pointed to the marijuana display case and asked him if White Widow was in there. Obviously there wasn’t any in there, but he claimed they had it though he never actually produced any.
He then began ranting again about Juanita being listed inaccurately as an Indica and reiterated that the owner was unwilling to help me. Exactly how the owner was helping me was beyond me, but at that stage I had had enough of being loudly accosted by this guy and gathered my things to leave. As I walked toward the door Agro began yelling at me;
“Don’t you disrespect me – don’t you walk out when I’m talking to you!”
And so on. I ignored him and walked into the reception area, where the Scottish guy asked what was wrong. I muttered something about his cohorts being assholes and walked out to the street. My bike was parked on the sidewalk, locked to a tree. As I was unlocking it, Agro came steaming out of the building and began yelling at me.
I thought for a few moments that we were going to have a physical altercation right there in the street. I wasn’t necessarily opposed to this as by then the guy really had my blood boiling and I was aching to shut his mouth one way or another. But being new to Barcelona and Spain in general and not yet having registered with the city, I didn’t want any problem with the authorities so I merely argued with him while I tried to get out of there as quickly as possible.
Agro was now pissed that I had disrespected him by walking out when he was talking. I countered that I was pissed that I had arranged my entire day based upon an agreement between me and the owner, that I had spent a significant amount of time the night prior preparing interview questions, that I rode my bike 40 minutes across the entire city to arrive on time, and the owner couldn’t be bothered to meet with me because he didn’t like a couple of things I wrote about my personal experience at his club.
I firmly insisted that I was the one being disrespected and that I would report my experience as accurately as possible. I pointed out that the erroneous information I had written about White Widow and Juanita was based on information given to me by China’s (the main owner) employees. I then swept my arm toward the crowd of onlookers who had gathered to watch this loud argument and indicated my extreme displeasure that an employee of a business had followed me out of the establishment and into the street to argue with me loudly and publicly.
Finally, I told him that making a spectacle of himself would do no good; the owner refused to meet with me, I would obviously never go back to the club again, so what more was there to talk about?
Eventually, the Scottish guy came out and physically pulled Agro back into the club.
Conclusion:
What really struck me most about this sad situation is that the owner knew I was interviewing his staff and patrons and looking the place over for a full-feature review of the club. If he was smart, respectful and a man of his word, he would have kept his meeting with me. He would have explained that I was misinformed about the White Widow and Juanita, and I would have corrected those items immediately. He could have explained the lack of permits for air conditioning, and I would have included this in the full-feature review, although I would not have changed it from the original article because the reporting was fair and accurate; it’s hot in there.
CLICK HERE TO APPLY FOR MEMBERSHIP NOW
(This is a preliminary application process; not all who apply will qualify for membership based on Spanish law and club policy. Application for membership is general and is not necessarily applied to any particular club unless the applicant fully qualifies.)
However, the owner chose to blow me off completely and instead have his employee verbally accost me first in the club, and then in the street in front of onlookers. It was both infuriating and embarrassing.
But you might like it at the Betty Boop cannabis club in Barcelona; especially if you’re really into marijuana edibles. They also have an analgesic marijuana salve that is apparently quite popular. The marijuana prices are fair but there are certainly cheaper places in the city, and the registration fee is double what the Barcelona cannabis club in my next review charges. To be instantly updated when that review is published, click the RSS icon below or at the top-right of the website.
- Barcelona Cannabis Club Review: Green Age - March 23, 2022
- Things to do after Smoking Weed in Barcelona - March 2, 2022
- 9 Things You Need to Know about Cannabis Clubs in Madrid - February 15, 2022
27 thoughts on “Barcelona Cannabis Club Review: Betty Boop”
Muy de acuerdo con su articulo ! No recomiendo a nadie este club. 7 euros / gr es el precio mínimo a dia de hoy…
Gracias por tu comentario!
Bonjour !
Jarrive à barcelona demain et un ami mas vivement conseiller de me faire parrainer par vous pour ladhesion. Je suis avec mon papa. Ce serait pour deux personnes. En esperant une reponse de votre part. Merci beaucoup je vous ai joint mon mail
Great read Russ, I was referred here just today by a member through email.
is there any places closer to La Rambla you would be willing to sponsor and refer me to?
thanks for the help and review
Hi Jamil; Thanks! Can you tell us a little bit about your impressions of Betty Boop? I hear they have fixed their exhaust systems now and possibly made other improvements.
There are tons of places near La Rambla but I’m honestly not sure which clubs are open anymore and won’t know until I get on the ground to investigate. I’m in the States at the moment but will return to Barcelona soon – send me an email if you are around for the next couple of weeks and we can discuss it. Peace -Russ
Salut Russ je suis a bcn encore une dizaine de jours et je n’ai pas eu la chance de pouvoir visiter un club 🙁 . Penses tu pouvoir m’aider?? 😀
Oui, je serai heureux de vous aider. Je vais vous envoyer un message privé donc s’il vous plaît vérifier votre e-mail. Paix -Russ
Hi Russ, very interesting read thanks for the post. I’m moving soon to BCN and wanted to know if you could sponsor me aswell. Let me know thanks man!
-M
Hi Malc; congratulations on your upcoming move to one of the greatest cities in the world! I will be happy to assist you when you are in Barcelona – just email me the day before you arrival at russ@marijuanagames.org and we’ll go from there. Peace -Russ
Hey Russ, im travelling to Barcelona next weekend and was wondering if you could sort me out with a club also well done on your website its by far the most informative site on the net about Barcelona cannabis clubs. Cheers
Hi George; Thanks for your comment! I will be happy to sponsor you for membership when you get here. Just email me the day prior to your arrival and I will make the necessary arrangements then. Peace
Hey Russ! I’ll be in Barca with my family in the next few weeks. Really want to try some of the spannish bud 🙂 Would you be willing to sponsor me?
Hi Alan; I will be happy to assist you when you arrive in the city. Just email me the day before your arrival in BCN at russ@marijuanagames.org and we’ll go from there. Peace
yeah i thought that but i found a website , entered my email. n got emailed by a “member” of betty boops telling me to go there as they are referring me , is this legit?
hey man nice article good read . just have a question, what other marijuana club in barca would you recommend? i entered my email on a site and they said to go to betyy boops. but would like to try another one, can i just turn up and join? going there in few weeks time. thanks
Hi Jamie;
Thanks for your comments. No, you definitely cannot just show up and join. Cannabis clubs in Barcelona must be private in order to exist under the law, which means that you must be sponsored by a current member in order to join. My site is full of reviews of other clubs that you can check out, but first I would recommend reading the following article I wrote which will tell you everything you need to know about Barcelona social clubs:
https://marijuanagames.org/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-barcelona-cannabis-clubs/
After you’ve read the article you can check our other reviews to determine which club you would like to discuss sponsorship at. Peace -Russ
I will be traveling to Barcelona to study at the University for one month at the beginning of June and would greatly appreciate any help finding some good weed. In addition, I remember you writing about bicycling are there places to rent bicycles or should I bring my Bianchi.
Thanks,
Rick
Hi Rick;
Thanks for your comment. There are plenty of places to rent a bicycle in Barcelona, but it’s rather expensive unless you’ll only be in town for a few days. For 100-200 Euro you can buy a cheap bike at a few shops in town, and then they will buy it back from you for some portion of the original cost when you are done with it. If you bring your Bianchi, be very careful. My Bianchi Camaleonte was stolen from outside a club in December, and there’s no use bothering to alert the police so I didn’t. It was locked up carefully, so that’s why I recommend just getting cheap bike that you don’t have to care about.
I’ll send you an email with more details, but if you want to read the post where I talk about my bike being stolen, check here: https://marijuanagames.org/barcelona-cannabis-club-review-jammin/
To learn more about how cannabis clubs in BCN work, check my post here: https://marijuanagames.org/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-barcelona-cannabis-clubs/
Peace
-Russ
Russ,
I along with 4 other old members of Betty Boop Barcelona stopped going there for similar reason. So, call it coincidence, but our experience was disappointing after first couple of month of signing up.
I don’t say this because of the employees, but because of the head management or directors. The problem comes from the top. Since the beginning we felt very confortable with the staff, but China and Lynn are just not nice.
We are happy elsewhere.
Thanks but no thanks.
It’s too bad that this is a common sentiment shared by many Betty Boop members. I think there’s a lot of opportunity for this to be a good cannabis club, but the general feedback in Barcelona about Betty Boop isn’t good. May I ask where you hang out now? Thanks for sharing your views! -Russ
Totally right with Mr.Russ Hudson. That cannabis social club as they would like to be called, seems to be more like a business than rather a social club.
I really don’t recomend to go there.
That’s my personal experience and I really hope you have another one.
Up to you.
Sorry your experience there wasn’t good, Pedro. If you want, just hit me up and I’ll sponsor you for membership at Sweet Dreams; it’s not business-like at all – they are the embodiment of what a true, private club should be. Here’s my review on that club:
Sweet Dreams in Barcelona: https://marijuanagames.org/barcelona-cannabis-club-review-sweet-dreams/
First of all…as a customer of this cannabis social club, it was funny to come across a review from one of the cannabis clubs I use to visit whenever I’m in town, but then started to see your unaccurated review and I have to reply somehow.
Frist thing firsts, your review is not based upon the club, its based upon the personal impression you had from one of the dispensers (oh, btw, dispensado is just a verb form, not a name) I won’t recall his name, as this is something that we don’t recognize as polite, but i’ve been sitting in this bar with this guy for some hours, and always has treated me the best way possible, trying to give me information on all the strains they have on display, or looking for it on a database if he doesn’t know about it.
For me its not the way they treated you, its the way you seem to ask for things. This is a Cannabis Social Club, not a Coffe Shop, if you welcome yourself by asking questions like “can I see your growing room” don’t expect to be welcomed warmly inside, even more if you are an stranger. Here in Spain there’s been a lot of problems with Police cutting plants from associations and private consumers, so just for security no growings are ever shown to strange people.
Come dude, permanently publicity? I told again, Private Cananbis Social Clubs do not need publicity, as they are not a lucrative bussiness. Even more…this is marijuanagames.org….not hightimes magazine…maybe a reknown writer with some activism on cannabis (not just a stoner wanting to get hi on spain) may have obtained those permits.
Hi Alex;
Thank you for your comment. I’m glad that you like the Betty Boop Cannabis Club: as I mentioned more than once in my review, some people may like it there, and that’s okay with me. I reported my experience truthfully from start to finish, so there’s no question of “accuracy.” My experience is not the same as yours; this is a personal review of the club based on my direct experience. I wrote accurately about everything from the registration process to my last time there. I complimented the club’s wide variety of marijuana and their impressive marijuana edibles, and reported my interactions – both positive and negative – with the staff and patrons truthfully.
I conducted two series of interviews at Betty Boop and was scheduled to conduct the third interview with the owner, whereupon I *MAY* have asked him to photograph the plants. Asking for this if the third interview resulted in good rapport is perfectly acceptable journalistic practice. I never asked this question and my review clearly states that. I asked only innocuous questions until I obtained full permission from the owner to conduct in-depth interviews with her staff and patrons.
I am a professional writer and I own many websites. Writers don’t always write under their own name, you know. But since you mentioned it, my site and I were written about just yesterday on the front page of HIGH TIMES: http://www.hightimes.com/read/pot-gaming-site-dream-come-true-stoners
Also yesterday my site was written about on the front page of MARIJUANA.com: http://www.marijuana.com/news/2013/10/stoned-mario-takes-a-big-rip-new-marijuana-videogames-and-their-elevated-play/
So I do take my job seriously, and I think the writing and level of presentation and professionalism speaks for itself. High Times and Marijuana.com think so, and if you take the time to review my work on the site I think you’ll agree as well, even though you don’t like the results of my personal review of Betty Boop BCN.
However, I do appreciate your comment and I’m sincerely glad you shared YOUR experience at Betty Boop in Barcelona. As I mentioned, not everyone will have the experience I had, and many people will like Betty Boop. That’s fine. I never even said I don’t like it, I just said I’ll never go back there for two reasons:
1.) An employee of the business accosted me and screamed aggressively at me in private and then in public
2.) The owner made an agreement with me and then broke it without resolve or apology or personal response
So Betty Boop might be cool for you and I spent several long hours on that same bar stool that you’re on, talking to the same guy you’re talking to and enjoying myself. But I won’t go back, plain and simple. I am reporting my personal experience and I reported it truthfully, so there’s nothing in this piece that’s up for negotiation.
If you own a restaurant and a reviewer has a bad experience there – be it because of staff or food or timing or cleanliness or whatever, the owner can’t simply “explain” it away or expect his patrons to. The really troubling part here is the owner and the “bartender” KNEW they were being reviewed and still chose to act the way they did, which tells me they don’t care. If they don’t care then this review does not matter. And if they don’t need or aren’t worried about publicity, then what are you defending them for? You had a good experience and I had a bad experience. Go start your own blog and write about your good experience there; I will gladly link to it as I consider myself to be exceptionally fair.
Finally, don’t think that you know me, sir. I am not “just a stoner wanting to get hi on spain,” I live here permanently and am operating 2 businesses here. I have a vested interest in the long term future of this city and its cannabis clubs, and if you do too you’ll be seeing a lot more of me.
The comment from Salvelox sounds like a pathetic attempt to justify the terrible conditions in the club and the inexcusable actions of the employees. Salvelox is the Vladimir Putin/Fox News of comments here, where reality takes no part in things 🙂
Lol, nice John. Personally, I think the antagonist in this case set the guy up to write the comment. Or maybe Agro wrote it himself; I don’t know. I haven’t added this to the review yet obviously, but this Agro guy emailed me weeks after all of this had already settled into the dust and began threatening me. I saved his emails (and his real name, which is not Agro) as I thought it was incredible that he would threaten me in writing! So I’ll add that to the review at some point soon, just for fun. 😉