LA's first marijuana friendly hotel opens for business
Light ‘em up! The historic hotel Normandie in Los Angeles’s Koreatown held a grand reopening on Tuesday for a special clientele—marijuana smokers.
The opening on April 20 is no accident, either, as it falls on 4/20, the very unofficial international day for celebrating marijuana.
“It’s really a logical step, a logical step. It’s a big city.
Real estate investor John Evangelista bought the hotel in January and asked Peron—a leader of efforts to legalise medical marijuana in California—to create a “pot-tel,” according to the Times.
After its reopening, the Normandie will offer special $420, two-day packages, and “you won’t need a towel at the bottom of the door” to hide any of its distinctive sweet smell, promoters said.
Like most issues surrounding the drug, the legal and practical details are murky. For example, it was not known whether you need to have a prescription to smoke and buy marijuana to stay at the hotel—as needed under California law.
It was also not clear whether a sample of the plant was available with the cost of the room.
There definitely are, however, vending machines in the lobby with tasty snacks, just in case hunger calls in the middle of the night.
Normandie marketer and marijuana rights activist Richard Eastman told the Times that the hotel now has a motto to shape its clientele’s outlook: “Forget Amsterdam ... All roads lead to the Normandie”.
“You won’t need a passport to come to the Normandie Hotel. You won’t need a plane ticket to come to the Normandie Hotel. On the Metro, the bus, the taxis, we’re centrally located in the middle of the center of the universe right here,” he said.—AFP
