Lifestyle
I spent 4 hours and 20 minutes in the state fair’s new weed lounge. Here’s how it went
Last month, the California State Fair announced plans to allow cannabis to be sold and consumed on-site for the first time in its 170-year history. On Sunday, I hopped on a flight from L.A. to Sacramento, bypassed the stands of deep-fried foods and whooshing carnival rides and made a beeline for Expo 6 to watch the first symbolic smoke sesh firsthand.
Here’s how the first four hours and 20 minutes went down at the fair’s new weed lounge.
Noon
At the back of the California Cannabis Experience, a brightly colored sign beckoned in a font you might find on a vintage postcard: “This way to the Embarc Oasis, ‘High From California.’” Below it, a hastily printed paper sign taped to the double doors reads: “Sales and consumption start at 12:30 p.m.” Organizers explained that the original 11 a.m. opening had been delayed. The reason? Because of an unexpectedly cool morning, the flame retardant applied to the artificial turf in the consumption lounge tent hadn’t yet dried. (That’s right. Organizers were making sure the fake grass didn’t get burned alongside the real grass.)
Trisha Rogers, a fair worker stationed at the front door of the exhibition hall, told me that around 300 people had inquired about the consumption lounge’s opening since the exhibit’s 10 a.m. start. (According to a spokesperson, by the end of the first day, more than 1,000 fair goers visited the lounge.)
Cardboard cutouts of stoner movie characters Harold and Kumar point the way to the California State Fair’s on-site consumption lounge.
12:15 p.m.
Somehow, without anyone in the crowd appearing to notice, one sign came off the double doors and a new one went up. The lounge opening was being pushed back another half hour to 1 p.m. Some in the crowd of 30-plus decided to busy themselves by retracing their steps through the collection of educational, weed-related exhibits. Others bided their time by adding to the Department of Cannabis Control’s nearby display (a large sign that asked “How do you enjoy your weed?” and invited answers by way of sticky notes). A few grabbed CBD-infused slushies from the bar or familiarized themselves with the recently announced 2024 California State Fair Cannabis Award winners whose names and products filled another entire wall.
The dispensary run by Embarc, one of two on-site, offers a chance to purchase some of the 2024 award-winning weed honored at the fair.
1:15 p.m.
The doors finally swung open to the cheers of a 60-strong crowd. A sign nearby proclaimed what they already know: “You’re making history today. You’re at the first State Fair in the world where cannabis is being legally sold.”
The first stop in making that history was a visit to the on-site dispensaries (outside cannabis products are not allowed) just on the other side of those double doors. One is run by Embarc, which features some of the 2024 gold medal winners honored in the exhibition (they’re noted with gold stars on the menus), and another is run by the Equity Trade Network, which showcases legacy and social equity brands. (Bringing cash is a smart idea. There are also ATMs throughout the fair.)
The vibe in this indoor/outdoor space was energetic, almost electric as people pointed fingers at the wares inside the glass cases and budtenders scurried about bagging orders. THC-infused edibles and drinks purchased here can be consumed without going elsewhere, but no one seemed to be taking advantage of the few couches in the space.
Bobby Dennehy’s freshly rolled, about-to-be-smoked blunt is framed against a dispensary bag emblazoned with “High From California.”
Instead, once their purchases were complete, most people slowly made their way to an exit where they could do one of two things: either hang a right and ease back into the rest of the fair with its fried foods, zooming rides and agricultural displays — but where cannabis consumption is very much not allowed. Or they could enter a gate (clearly marked by cardboard cutouts of stoner movie characters Harold and Kumar), pass through an ID check and then take a short (about .11 miles) stroll along a path that leads under a towering set of bleachers, around the edge of a sports field, ending in a remote tented corner of the fairgrounds that can’t be seen by the general public.
1:20 p.m.
At opening, the mostly empty tent was giving awkward wedding reception vibes. The ground inside was covered completely with artificial turf, and there was a raised stage at one end and two groupings of wooden box-like structures at the other. (Are they seats? Tables? Did it matter?) The propaganda film-turned-cult classic “Reefer Madness” played on a screen at the back of the stage. A few high-top tables were hastily set up when it became apparent there weren’t many suitable places for folks to post up and roll a joint. (Attendees planning to consume on-site should be prepared to roll their own or buy a piece of paraphernalia or papers on-site. Fair rules prohibit bringing your own smoking gear.)
“This is crazy. It’s getting it to where we want it to be — equalized [and] not just treating it like a criminal thing.”
— Ray Ochoa
1:28 p.m.
Ray Ochoa, 28, of Sacramento, stepped into the tent, sparked a CGO Hash Hole (a type of concentrate-infused pre-rolled joint) and became the first person to legally get high at the California State Fair. When told he was the first to fire up, Ochoa let out an enthusiastic whoop. His friends Yogi “Rollz” Romello, 27, and LaMar Mixon, 31, also from Sacramento, followed suit, sparking their own joints and marking the moment.
“This is crazy,” Ochoa said about having a dedicated place to smoke weed at the fair. “It’s getting it to where we want it to be — equalized [and] not just treating it like a criminal thing. We want to be able to smoke with the homies wherever everybody else goes.” His post-partaking plan? “I’m going to go get a little lemonade,” he said. “Gotta mix the terps with the terps. Then I’m just going to go walk around and chill and spend time with the homies.”
The California Cannabis Experience, the gateway to the consumption lounge, includes a wall bearing the question “How do you enjoy your weed?” and invites attendees to answer via sticky note.
1:35 p.m.
On the other side of the tent, a trio of men in wide-brimmed sun hats leaned against a table and got down to business. Pete Telles, 55, of Roseville, Calif., came to the fair with his father, Noel Telles, 85, visiting from Buckeye, Ariz., and their friend from Sacramento, John Matijasic, 73. The latter leaned his cane against the table and focused intently on rolling a joint of Pure Beauty New Jack City (a 2024 indoor flower gold medal winner).
A few attempts later, Matijasic had a functional joint that he proudly lit up and passed to his friends. “I’m smoking dope at the California State Fair,” he said with a sense of bemusement. “After this, I’m going to just sit down and watch people.”
Noel Telles, 85, left, and John Matijasic, 73, are among the first folks to legally light up a joint at the California State Fair. “It doesn’t get any better than this!” Telles told The Times.
(Adam Tschorn / Los Angeles Times)
“This is the exact reason why I’m here today,” Pete Telles said. “To have the ability to purchase and consume and be with like-minded people — and to be with my father, who is a legend to me. We’ve been coming to the fair every year since the mid-’80s.” The younger Telles described being able to consume cannabis legally in public with his father as the best feeling in the world. “It’s like heaven,” he said.
A few puffs later, Noel Telles looked out from under the wide brim of his Ace Hardware sun hat and offered his own assessment. “This is wonderful,” he said. “It doesn’t get any better than this!”
1:53 p.m.
The tent felt less cavernous. Part of that had to do with the 31 people here, most of them smoking up in couples, troikas or quartets, but it also had to do with a handful of folding chairs that materialized out of nowhere. “Reefer Madness” continued to play, but the dialogue was all but drowned out by the social smoking scene. I ducked out of the consumption lounge briefly to stroll the fair. Even though I was very much not high, I managed to eat a sausage the length of my forearm.
3 p.m.
When I returned, Ochoa was gone (presumably on his quest for lemonade), but his buddies Romello and Mixon were holding court near an industrial-sized fan that was circulating their smoke like dry ice vapor across a film set. They were joined by a bunch of friends wearing matching T-shirts emblazoned with the name Frosted Flavors, a Sacramento-based social equity brand specializing in indoor cannabis grown under LED lights.
“[I]t feels like we’re living in the future a little bit …”
— Heidy Santamaria
Heidy Santamaria tries to get a joint rolled in time to spark up in the tent by 4:20 p.m.
(Andri Tambunan / For The Times)
Dustin Mahoney Villafuerte lights up a joint on the first day of legal on-site consumption at the California State Fair.
LaMar Mixon is one of the first three people to light up legally at this year’s state fair along with buddies Ray Ochoa and Yogi Romello (not pictured).
4:15 p.m.
Heidy Santamaria, 26, and Stefania Gagnon, 21, both from Sacramento, sat on folding chairs in the middle of the room. Santamaria was attempting to roll a joint from a jar of Sync SF Strawberry Runtz flower in time for a 4:20 p.m. celebratory smoke. It was a task made more challenging by her exquisite nail art. “This is cool,” Santamaria said about the ability to buy — and consume — cannabis on-site. “I was telling her inside at the little bar[-like] dispensary that it feels like we’re living in the future a little bit. Because when we were growing up, we never thought we’d be able to do something like this.”
A group of cannathusiasts takes to the stage inside the consumption lounge tent at 4:20 p.m. to the sounds of Rick James’ “Mary Jane” and celebrates being able to get high legally at the California State Fair for the first time.
4:20 p.m.
The smoking tent’s population grew to 53, the highest (literally and figuratively) of the day so far. Rick James’ song “Mary Jane” started playing as a handful of celebrants, including the Frosted Flavors guys, took to the stage with joints in hand.
“Welcome to 4:20 for the first time legally at the fair!” someone yelled into the microphone. “Light ’em up!” Everyone in the tent obliged, inhaling deeply and then exhaling one very large — and now very legal — communal cloud of smoke into the air.
Know before you go
There’s no guarantee you’ll have the same level of lounge experience that I did, but if you’re planning to visit the cannabis exhibit at the California State Fair (Cal Expo, 1600 Exposition Blvd., Sacramento), here are a few things you should know:
- Bring a government-issued photo ID card. (You must be 21 to enter.)
- Don’t consume cannabis products outside of the designated lounge.
- If you leave the dispensary or lounge with any opened cannabis product packages, they’ll need to be sealed inside a tamper-proof bag by security personnel upon exiting.
The cannabis exhibit is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday through July 28. Also, the hours for on-site cannabis sales are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily (except for July 19), and the consumption area is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily for the duration of the state fair (except for July 19).
Single-day tickets for the fair are $18 for adults and $14 for seniors 62 and older.
Oh, and one more thing: Once you’ve had your history-making smoke, skip the fried foods and carnival rides and instead go right next door to Expo 4. You’ll get to enjoy the visual feast that is the Animation Academy. You can thank me later.
When Marian Sherry Lurio and Jonathan Buffington Nguyen met at a mutual friend’s wedding at Higgins Lake, Mich., in July 2022, both felt an immediate chemistry. As the evening progressed, they sat on the shore of the lake in Adirondack chairs under the stars, where they had their first kiss before joining others for a midnight plunge.
The two learned that the following weekend Ms. Lurio planned to attend a wedding in Philadelphia, where Mr. Nguyen lives, and before they had even exchanged numbers, they already had a first date on the books.
“I have a vivid memory of after we first met,” Mr. Nguyen said, “just feeling like I really better not screw this up.”
Before long, they were commuting between Philadelphia and New York City, where Ms. Lurio lives, spending weekends and the odd remote work days in one another’s apartments in Philadelphia and Manhattan. Within the first six months of dating, Mr. Nguyen joined Ms. Lurio’s family for Thanksgiving in Villanova, Pa., and, the following month, she met his family in Beavercreek, Ohio, at a surprise birthday party for Mr. Nguyen’s mother.
Ms. Lurio, 32, who grew up in Merion Station outside Philadelphia, works in investor relations administration at Flexpoint Ford, a private equity firm. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a bachelor’s degree in history and psychology.
Mr. Nguyen, also 32, was born in Knoxville, Tenn., and raised in Beavercreek, Ohio, from the age of 7. He graduated from Haverford College with a bachelor’s degree in political science and is now a director at Doyle Real Estate Advisors in Philadelphia.
Their long-distance relationship continued for the next few years. There were dates in Manhattan, vacations and beach trips to the Jersey Shore. They attended sporting events and discovered their shared appreciation of the 2003 film, “Love Actually.”
One evening, Mr. Nguyen recalled looking around Ms. Lurio’s small New York studio — strewed with clothes and the takeout meal they had ordered — and feeling “so comfortable and safe.” “I knew that this was something different than just sort of a fling,” he said.
It was an open question when they would move in together. In 2024, Ms. Lurio began the process of moving into Mr. Nguyen’s home in Philadelphia — even bringing her cat, Scott — but her plans changed midway when an opportunity arose to expand her role with her current employer.
Mr. Nguyen was on board with her decision. “It almost feels like stolen valor to call it ‘long distance,’ because it’s so easy from Philadelphia to New York,” Mr. Nguyen said. “The joke is, it’s easier to get to Philly from New York than to get to some parts of Brooklyn from Manhattan, right?”
In January 2025, Mr. Nguyen visited Ms. Lurio in New York with more up his sleeve than spending the weekend. Together they had discussed marriage and bespoke rings, but when Mr. Nguyen left Ms. Lurio and an unfinished cheese plate at the bar of the Chelsea Hotel that Friday evening, she had no idea what was coming next.
“I remember texting Jonathan,” Ms. Lurio said, bewildered: “‘You didn’t go toward the bathroom!’” When a Lobby Bar server came and asked her to come outside, Ms. Lurio still didn’t realize what was happening until she was standing in the hallway, where Mr. Nguyen stood recreating a key moment from the film “Love Actually,” in which one character silently professes his love for another in writing by flashing a series of cue cards. There, in the storied Chelsea Hotel hallway still festooned with Christmas decorations, Mr. Nguyen shared his last card that said, “Will you marry me?”
They wed on April 11 in front of 200 guests at the Pump House, a covered space on the banks of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River. Mr. Nguyen’s sister, the Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen, who is ordained through the Unitarian Universalist Association, officiated.
Although formal attire was suggested, Ms. Lurio said that the ceremony was “pretty casual.” She and Jonathan got ready together, and their families served as their wedding parties.
“I said I wanted a five-minute wedding,” Ms. Lurio recalled, though the ceremony ended up lasting a little longer than that. During the ceremony, Ms. Nguyen read a homily and jokingly added that guests should not ask the bride and groom about their living arrangements, which will remain separate for the foreseeable future.
While watching Ms. Lurio walk down the aisle, flanked by her parents, Mr. Nguyen said he remembered feeling at once grounded in the moment and also a sense of dazed joy: “Like, is this real? I felt very lucky in that moment — and also just excited for the party to start!”
He always texted when he was outside. No call, no knock. It was just a message and then the soft sound of my door opening. He moved like someone practiced in disappearing.
His name meant “complete” in Arabic, which is what I felt when we were together.
I met him the way you meet most things that matter in Los Angeles — without intending to. In our senior year at a college in eastern L.A. County, we were introduced through mutual friends, then thrown together by the particular gravity of people who recognized something in each other. He was a Muslim medical student, conservative and careful and funny in the dry, precise way of someone who has always had to choose his words. I was loud where he was quiet, messy where he was disciplined. I was out. He was not.
I understood, or thought I did. I thought that I couldn’t get hurt if I was completely conscious throughout the endeavor. Los Angeles has a way of making you feel like the whole world shares your freedoms — until you realize the city is enormous, and not all of it belongs to you in the same way.
For months, our world was confined to my apartment. He would slip in after dark, and we’d stay up late talking about his family in Iran, classical music and the particular pressure of being the son someone sacrificed everything to bring here. He told me things he said he’d never told anyone, and I believed him.
The orange glow from my Nesso lamp lit his face while the indigo sky pressed against the window behind him. In our small little world, we were safe. Outside was another matter.
On our first real date, I took him to the L.A. Phil’s “An Evening of Film & Music: From Mexico to Hollywood” program. I told him they were cheap seats even though they were the first row on the terrace. He was thrilled in the way only someone who doesn’t expect to be delighted actually gets delighted — fully, without guarding it. I put my arm around his shoulders. At some point, I shifted and moved it, and he nudged it back. He was OK with PDA here.
I remember thinking that wealth is a great barrier to harm and then feeling silly for extrapolating my own experience once again. Inside Walt Disney Concert Hall, we were just two people in love with the same music.
Outside was still another matter.
In February, on Valentine’s Day, he took me to a Yemeni restaurant in Anaheim. We hovered over saffron tea surrounded by other young Southern Californians, and we looked like friends. Before we went in, we sat in the parking lot of the strip mall — signs in Arabic advertising bread, coffee, halal meats, the Little Arabia District — hand in hand. I leaned over to kiss him.
“Not here,” he said. His eyes shifted furtively. “Someone might see.”
I understood, or told myself I did, but I was saddened. Later, after the kind of reflection that only arrives in the wreckage, I would understand something harder: I had been unconsciously asking him to choose, over and over, between the people he loved and the person he loved. I had a long pattern of choosing unavailable men, telling myself it was because I could handle the complexity. The truth was more embarrassing. I thought that if someone like him chose me anyway — chose me over the weight of societal expectations — it would mean I was worth choosing. It took me a long time to see how unfair that was to him and to me.
We went to the Norton Simon Museum together in November, on the kind of gray Pasadena day when the 210 Freeway roars in the background like white noise. He studied for the MCAT while I wrote a paper on Persian rugs. In between practice problems, he translated ancient Arabic scripts for me. I thought, “We make a good team.” Afterward, we walked through the galleries and he didn’t let go of my arm.
That was the version of us I kept returning to — when the ending came during Ramadan. It arrived as a spiritual reflection of my own. I texted: “Does this end at graduation — whatever we are doing?”
He thought I meant Ramadan. I did not mean Ramadan.
“I care about you,” he wrote, “but I don’t want you to think this could work out to anything more than just dating. I mean, of course, I’ve fantasized about marrying you. If I could live my life the way I wanted, of course I would continue. I’m just sad it’s not in this lifetime.”
I was in Mexico City when these texts were exchanged. That night I flew to Oaxaca to clear my head and then, after less than 24 hours, flew back to L.A. No amount of vacation would allow me to process what had just happened, so I threw myself back into work.
My therapist told me to use the conjunction “and” instead of “but.” It happened, and I am changed. The harm I caused and the love I felt. The beauty of what we made and the impossibility of where it could go. She gave me a knowing smile when I asked if it would stay with me forever. She didn’t answer, which was the answer.
I think about the freeways now, the way Joan Didion called them our only secular communion. When you’re on the ground in Los Angeles, the world narrows to the few blocks around you. Get on the freeway and you understand the whole body of the city at once: the arteries, the pulse, the scale of the thing.
You understand that you are a single cell in something enormous and moving. It is all out of your control. I am in a lane. The lane shaped how I drive. He was simply in a different lane, and his lane shaped him, and those two facts can coexist without either of us being the villain of the sad story.
He came like a secret in the night, and he left the same way. What we made in between was real and complicated and mine to hold forever, hoping we find each other in the next life.
The author lives in Los Angeles.
L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
The art industry is increasingly shaped by artists’ and art businesses’ shared realization that they are locked in a fierce struggle for sustained attention — against each other, and against the rest of the overstimulated, always-online world. A major New York art fair aims to win this competition next month by knocking down the increasingly shaky walls between contemporary art and fashion.
When visitors enter the Independent art fair on May 14, they will almost immediately encounter its open-plan centerpiece: an installation of recent couture looks from Comme des Garçons. It will be the first New York solo presentation of works by Rei Kawakubo, the brand’s founder and mastermind, since a lauded 2017 survey exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.
Art fairs have often been front and center in the industry’s 21st-century quest to capture mindshare. But too many displays have pierced the zeitgeist with six-figure spectacles, like Maurizio Cattelan’s duct-taped banana and Beeple’s robot dogs. Curating Independent around Comme des Garçons comes from the conviction that a different kind of iconoclasm can rise to the top of New York’s spring art scrum.
Elizabeth Dee, the founder and creative director of Independent, said that making Kawakubo’s work the “nerve center” of this year’s edition was a “statement of purpose” for the fair’s evolution. After several years at the compact Spring Studios in TriBeCa, Independent will more than double its square footage by moving to Pier 36 at South Street, on the East River. Dee has narrowed the fair’s exhibitor list, to 76, from 83 dealers in 2025, and reduced booth fees to encourage a focus on single artists making bold propositions.
“Rei’s work has been pivotal to thinking about how my work as a curator, gallerist and art fair can push boundaries, especially during this extraordinary move toward corporatization and monoculture in the art world in the last 20 years,” Dee said.
Kawakubo’s designs have been challenging norms since her brand’s first Paris runway show in 1981, but her work over the last 13 years on what she calls “objects for the body” has blurred borders between high fashion and wearable sculpture.
The Comme des Garçons presentation at Independent will feature 20 looks from autumn-winter 2020 to spring-summer 2025. Forgoing the runway, Kawakubo is installing her non-clothing inside structures made from rebar and colored plastic joinery.
Adrian Joffe, the president of both Comme des Garçons International and the curated retailer Dover Street Market International (and who is also Kawakubo’s husband), said in an interview that Kawakubo’s intention was to create a sculptural installation divorced from chronology and fashion — “a thing made new again.”
Every look at Independent was made in an edition of three or fewer, but only one of each will be for sale on-site. Prices will be about $9,000 to $30,000. Comme des Garçons will retain 100 percent of the sales.
Asked why she was interested in exhibiting at Independent, the famously elusive Kawakubo said via email, “The body of work has never been shown together, and this is the first presentation in New York in almost 10 years.” Joffe added a broader philosophical motivation. “We’ve never done it before; it was new,” he said. Also essential was the fair’s willingness to embrace Kawakubo’s vision for the installation rather than a standard fair booth.
Kawakubo began consistently engaging with fine art decades before such crossovers became commonplace. Since 1989, she has invited a steady stream of contemporary artists to create installations in Comme des Garçons’s Tokyo flagship store. The ’90s brought collaborations with the artist Cindy Sherman and performance pioneer Merce Cunningham, among others.
More cross-disciplinary projects followed, including limited-release direct mailers for Comme des Garçons. Kawakubo designs each from documentation of works provided by an artist or art collective.
The display at Independent reopens the debate about Kawakubo’s proper place on the continuum between artist and designer. But the issue is already settled for celebrated artists who have collaborated with her.
“I totally think of Rei as an artist in the truest sense,” Sherman said by email. “Her work questions what everyone else takes for granted as being flattering to a body, questions what female bodies are expected to look like and who they’re catering to.”
Ai Weiwei, the subject of a 2010 Comme des Garçons direct mailer, agreed that Kawakubo “is, in essence, an artist.” Unlike designers who “pursue a sense of form,” he added, “her design and creation are oriented toward attitude” — specifically, an attitude of “rebellion.”
Also taking this position is “Costume Art,” the spring exhibition at the Costume Institute. Opening May 10, the show pairs individual works from multiple designers — including Comme des Garçons — with artworks from the Met’s holdings to advance the argument made by the dress code for this year’s Met gala: “Fashion is art.”
True to form, Kawakubo sometimes opts for a third way.
“Rei has often said she’s not a designer, she’s not an artist,” Joffe said. “She is a storyteller.”
Now to find out whether an art fair sparks the drama, dialogue and attention its authors want.
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