Bloom

2637 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 444-7538, bloomportland.com.

Bloom streamlines the buying process by offering prepackaged and weighed canisters of leaf. Roving budtenders walk patients through selections in a half-unfinished, half-bourgie space that looks like somebody placed a dentist's waiting room inside an Urban Outfitters. Receptionists pull double duty as stock retrievers and cashiers behind a glass window sturdier than you'd find in many Portland banks. The measures might seem draconian until you consider that security is a very real problem for an industry still an arm's length from legality in the rest of the country. There are a number of visionary shops out there to get excited about, but it's the practicalities of how this industry is run that will ultimately decide who thrives and who goes under.

Willamette Week