The Emporium?

I'm not the best person to answer since I was also a teen in the '90's, but no one else has said anything.

My guess is that it's sort of like an arcade, where you pay to play all the games, but they allowed you to bring in your own drinks. My other guess it that it was a commercial enterprise rather than local government run.

One of the fantasies this film indulges in was a real lack of authority or police consequences.

Places like the Emporium existed (and they tolerated kids smoking, too), but they were usually pretty fucking hard-assed about illegal drinking due to liquor licensing and definitely not tolerant of pot smoking. Which isn't to say none of that went on, it was just unlikely to be as flagrant and common as it was in the film.

We had beer busts in isolated park areas, too, but the cops always found them, yet these guys get 100s of people out there and no cops? The relentless speeding and open pot smoking? Pot was a felony in Texas.

I grew up in suburban Pittsburgh. As far as The Emporium, we had something that was kind of like it in a split level building. Be basement area was pool and the upper area was video games/pinball and a pizza place. Not to say that no one openly smoked weed but it would have been very few and far between and even then only outside. There was a dark ally not too far off most of the stoners went to when they wanted to light up. I don't recall anyone ever getting busted by the police. To be honest, I don't remember a police presence there at all. I also don't recall any fights that happened there.

You'd find a lot of empty beer cans in the parking area but I don't recall anyone openly drinking. The drinking age at the time was 21 and the pizza place didn't sell beers. Most of the beer parties in the woods were ignored unless someone went out of their way to start trouble.

My brother graduated high school in 83. Back then they actually had a designated student smoking area at the high school. By the time I graduated in 91 that was gone but possessing smokes was mostly shrugged off as long as you weren't being too open about it and kept them in your pockets. At the time there was no enforced age law involving cigarettes.