Controversial LA Hotel Goes 'Green'
The Normandie Hotel in Los Angeles opened in the 1920s as a thoroughly reputable venture, but since has been taken over by a fellow called Dennis Peron, a hero of the marijuana movement who once opened a medical dispensary handing out the drug in San Francisco. Now based in Los Angeles, Peron and other marijuana activists have been busy renovating the hotel to cater for those who are rather into the green stuff, with the newly-furnished, if controversial, hotel opening this week.
Peron and co are calling the rebranded Hotel Normandie a 'pot-tel', with the idea being that the hotel is designed for those in the LA area who are into smoking weed, for medical reasons for the most part. There are 106 rooms in total, with renovations still continuing even as the hotel reopened, with much of the work paid for by anonymous donors. Previously the hotel catered towards travellers on a budget and, in earlier times, to Korean-speaking visitors to LA. The re-launch was timed to coincide with the annual day of celebration for pot smokers worldwide: April 20th.
There might be a few problems pertaining to the hotel, however. Firstly, travellers who get ill after paying this hotel a visit might run into trouble when trying to make a claim against their last minute travel insurance; it is the sort of thing that is bound to look more than a little dubious to insurance companies processing immediate travel insurance claims! And as for the hotel itself, it turns out that the owners are apparently facing some problems with loans?about $200,000 in loans to be precise?while there are also disagreements ongoing with the hotel's former owners, meaning that the Normandie Hotel's future as a hash heaven is more than a little uncertain.
