WHERE IS THERE SMOKEWARE IN LONG BEACH?

After opening a display case featuring thousands of dollars of glass
sculptures for a photo shoot, GooseFire Gallery owner Matt Abrams
gingerly moved each delicate piece back to its corresponding number
before locking the multiple-sided case.

At first glance, patrons perusing Abram's Bluff Heights gallery may
not notice that many of the colorful, intricate pieces on display - a
pair of human-sized glass snakes, a smattering of Native American
Kachina sculptures - double as pipes and bongs.

But that is precisely what they are - high-end artistic
smokeware.

"There's nothing else like that out there," said Abrams, referring to
the $45,000 glass depiction of a bamboo-climbing lemur. (The piece
contains about seven pipes, most of them discreetly built into the
bamboo shoots.)

Abrams, 29, is on the verge of opening daily to the public GooseFire
Gallery, a business that exhibits about 75 pieces of what some may
view as controversial glass art.

"I saw the counterculture with the rise of graffiti art and Banksy and
stuff like that," Abrams said. "The counterculture wants something
different than traditional canvas paintings."

GooseFire Gallery, which has been open to a couple of private parties
since May, is an offshoot of another business Abrams stumbled into -
medical marijuana.

Born and raised in Seal Beach, the Los Alamitos High School graduate
studied to be an attorney in Chicago before Advertisement returning to
California to practice small business and marital law.

"I had a couple of clients who needed legal work for the dispensaries
they were trying to open," he said. "They ended up not being able to
pay me, so I took over part of their business and revamped it."

He ended up buying his clients out of business and moving his
dispensaries from Los Angeles to Long Beach. His family owns the
collective across the street from GooseFire Gallery, called One Love
Long Beach.

Meanwhile, issues involving collectives were heating up. Although
California voters legalized marijuana for medicinal use in 1996, the
growing number of dispensaries coming to town prompted city leaders to
crack down. Last year, the City Council passed a law limiting where
collectives could operate, among other requirements.

These days, Abrams acts as One Love's managing director.

"I handle the legal work," Abrams said. "I don't have much day to day
involvement besides making sure they're staying compliant with all the
laws."

State law restricts marijuana collectives to nonprofits and because of
that, they are not able to act as a retail store and sell smokeware,
said Kendra Carney, deputy city attorney.

So Abrams and his family decided to establish GooseFire in the House
Building, a 1929 landmark.

It is not what one expects when one walks into GooseFire Gallery. The
idea of a smokeware retailer conjures up visions of dark, dank spaces
filled with spooky misshapen glass bongs, marijuana wafting in the
air.

But GooseFire Gallery is a bright and airy space, filled with the art
of 15 artists ranging from $500 to $10,000, in addition to the lemur
piece. About 70 percent of the artwork is "functional art," with pipes
and bubblers depicted in the images of animals, flowers, helicopters,
Native American warriors and beloved childhood characters. (Star Wars
and Hello Kitty, anyone?)

Not everyone considers the smokeware art appropriate.

"Smokeware is a fancy name for paraphernalia used to administer
illegal drugs," said Calvina Fay, executive director of Drug Free
America Foundation.

Fay says the promotion of these products encourages "an illegal,
unhealthy and dangerous activity and should not be condoned."

"Drug paraphernalia labeled as smokeware is no more art than vomit
is," she said. "Drugs have destroyed many lives and families and there
is nothing beautiful or fascinating about it. ... Peddlers of
smokeware who recklessly promote drug activity and contribute to this
health problem just to make a buck, even under the guise of art, are
repulsive, not artistic."

Abrams said he understands that what he is displaying is controversial
and compares the artistic movement to that of graffiti and tattoo art,
both increasingly mainstream art forms.

"I think even people who don't enjoy the marijuana see the time and
effort and the artistic elements put into these pieces," Abrams said.
"You can't deny that. They look at it and go, 'I don't appreciate that
it's a pipe but I do appreciate that it's a beautiful piece of work.'

"You plug in the holes and it's not a pipe anymore. It's an actual
beautiful piece of art."