Before the pandemic, West Hollywood was on track to open 16 cannabis consumption lounges.
Less than six months before the pandemic began, the Original Cannabis Cafe — known at its opening as Lowell Cafe — debuted with a massive green-tinged bang. The nation’s first cannabis consumption lounge played to long lines that twisted down La Brea Avenue, with locals and tourists waiting their turn to openly consume cannabis in a restaurant setting. Everything from bongs and vaporizer pens, to cannabis oil, concentrated cannabis (also known as dabs), and cannabis beverages were in heavy rotation — as was a ‘flower host’ to roll custom table side joints.
The Cannabis Cafe was a major success, thanks in large part to the city of West Hollywood itself. Officials began making long-term plans to handle cannabis consumption lounges well before California’s adult-use became legal in 2017, launching a permit process to have a total of 10 dispensaries and 16 consumption lounges within the compact city of WeHo in short order. The approach was a strategic one, relating back 40 years to WeHo’s longstanding relationship with cannabis.
– Read the entire article at Los Angeles Eater.
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