LOS ANGELES — Barely four hours after he had arrived in Los Angeles from Georgia to attend his nephew's birthday bash, James Huling was seated at a bar rolling a joint and sipping a cannabis-infused agua fresca on a recent Thursday afternoon.

"I'm trying to find out about that Cali life," said Huling, 71, with a grin as he sparked the freshly rolled joint of Maven Orange Sapphire. "I'm ready for this to be legal all over the United States," he added as he exhaled a plume of smoke. "It's not legal in Georgia yet, but it's on the ballot. And I cast my vote right before I left."

Meanwhile, 38-year-old James Milne lounged in a seat not far away, his back against a frosted glass window, observing the scene from behind Ray-Ban sunglasses. As he finished a joint of Pure Beauty Spritzer, a budtender delivered a roll of Starburst candy and a box of water to him on a silver tray.

The novelty wasn't that Huling and Milne were getting high in a public place, but rather where they were getting legally lit — in the city of Hawthorne, just minutes from Los Angeles International Airport. That's because, until recently, cannabis consumers in the greater Los Angeles area looking for a licensed cannabis consumption lounge could only find one in a two-mile stretch of West Hollywood, home to the county's first five licensed consumption lounges.

The change came late last month with the opening of the Artist Tree Weed Dispensary & Lounge Hawthorne.

Located on Imperial Highway less than half a mile from where the 405 and 105 freeways meet, the roughly 4,500-square-foot space is the ninth pot-shop-meets-art-gallery concept under the Artist Tree nameplate and the second to include a consumption lounge. (The first lounge opened in April 2022 in West Hollywood.)

The new outpost is likely to attract travelers as well as South Bay cannabis consumers like Milne, who had driven from Torrance and made the trek to the new location in about 15 minutes. "I've been to the Woods and [the other] Artist Tree [lounge]," he said about two of the West Hollywood spots. "And my take? I'll be back [here]. This place has a relaxed, open vibe to it, and the budtender was really helpful."

To find that relaxed open vibe Milne speaks of, all patrons need to do is head for the double doors at the back of the 3,800-square-foot dispensary sales floor. Behind them is a 1,500-square-foot interior space dotted with a dozen tables and enough chairs to seat 40 flowerheads (the roomy space can accommodate up to 125 people total).

While the new location has a similar vibe to other Artist Tree shops, with works for sale by local artists adorning the walls, gleaming display cases filled with flower, extracts and edibles, and a glass box in the middle of the room filled with live plants, there are a few ways in which it's notably different.

The most obvious difference is its freeway-convenient location on the very edge of Hawthorne where it borders Inglewood and El Segundo. It also offers ample parking, which is all but nonexistent at the West Hollywood location. The new shop is easily accessible by public transit, including Metro's C Line that runs from Redondo Beach to Norwalk. (Under no circumstances should you get behind the wheel of a car after consuming cannabis.)

"We were looking for an area that was under-served and not saturated, and this location fits that description," Artist Tree co-founder and Chief Compliance Officer Lauren Fontein said about finding the five-year-old building that had been built but never occupied. "We were pretty excited because it's adjacent to all the South Bay cities and about eight minutes from Manhattan Beach."

The location is notable for another reason too: It makes the Artist Tree the first cannabis dispensary and first lounge to open under the city of Hawthorne's budding cannabis program. According to Gregg McClain, director of the city's planning department, city ordinances allow for up to six retail stores, with up to three of those having on-site consumption lounges. "We are hoping to see two more retail cannabis businesses open in early 2025," he told The Times in an email, "and the remaining three in the second half of 2025."

The Artist Tree's Vice President of Operations Philip Del Rio said being close to SoFi Stadium, which is about three miles away, has already resulted in some post-game lounge traffic, as has the proximity to Los Angeles International Airport, also about three miles away.

"The other day we had a couple gentlemen come in who were on their way to the airport," Del Rio said. "And just an hour after that, we had some people stop in who were coming from the airport."

The good news for those who might have just landed at LAX and want to make a serendipitous stop-in: no reservations are required to use the lounge. You just need to be 21 or older and show up with a valid government-issued photo identification and purchase what you plan to consume on the premises.

If you drop in during the day, you'll find a lounge area awash with natural light filtered through frosted-glass floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides — one fronting Imperial Highway and the other South Inglewood Avenue. As day turns to dusk and then nighttime, the suffused daylight outside gives way to the firefly-like flicker of passing headlights, while inside the room is bathed in light from a huge TV screen on one wall. Anchoring a back corner is a tile-fronted, mirror-backed bar with five bar stools in front and all manner of high-end, futuristic-looking smoking paraphernalia (for rent starting at $15) lined up on glass shelves.

That bar serves as the lounge's nerve center; products ordered for consumption (everything that's available on the dispensary side can be ordered on the lounge side as well) are passed through a small service window at the end of the bar, while all kinds of fun and festive THC-infused (but alcohol-free) cocktails are made to order behind it.

Fontein pointed out that the creative cocktail menu was a lesson learned after opening the West Hollywood lounge and dealing with challenges encountered trying to legally serve food.

"We sort of pivoted away from [trying to make] it feel like a restaurant to focusing on the lounge experience," she said. "And the craft cocktails are a big part of that. ... Drinking is such an integral part of social culture."

The result is a collection of locally inspired canna-cocktails (created in collaboration with cannabis cocktail maker Pamos) that are as good to look at as they are tasty.

One of the standouts is a riff on the piña colada called "To the Moon," with a not-of-this-planet look that comes by way of a bright purple butterfly pea flower extract and a dusting of cocktail glitter. "We were originally going to call it the SpaceX cocktail," the bartender quipped as he placed one in front of me, "until Elon Musk moved the company [out of Hawthorne]." (In July, Musk said he would move SpaceX's headquarters to Texas.)

Another is a tart take on an agua fresca served in a chamoy- and Tajín-rimmed glass. All five of the cocktails on the menu right now (some may be switched seasonally) are offered with either 3 milligrams of THC ($12 to $16) or 10 milligrams ($15 to $19). All of them can be made as THC-free mocktails ($7 each). The drinks are all served uninfused with a small bottle of the THC-containing elixir for customer to add themselves.

For the moment, the food menu consists mostly of prepackaged munchie-type sweet and savory snacks and a handful of hefty sandwiches made by Bread Lounge in downtown L.A.

The biggest difference with this spot from the rest of the local places to legally light up is clear. From the beginning, the Hawthorne location was envisioned to have full-scale, on-site food preparation.

Last month, Gov. Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1775 into law, which will allow the new Artist Tree outpost and other cannabis consumption lounges to serve food prepared on site starting Jan. 1. A few of the lounges in West Hollywood had managed to get around current restrictions by operating two separate-but-adjoining businesses — one serving cannabis and the other food.

"We started designing this space when the prior version of the [cannabis cafe bill] was up for consideration," Fontein said. "So we have the space to do a full kitchen on-site and we've already built out the plumbing and the gas and all that. So we're really well-positioned. We just haven't decided what kind of cuisine we want to offer. Probably gastropub [fare]."

One of the things that has carried over from the West Hollywood location is entertainment programming that includes Sunday-night sports-watching, stand-up comedy nights on the second Thursday of the month and herbally enhanced art classes. Next up is a Halloween-themed puff, puff paint event scheduled for Oct. 27.

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