One of San Diego’s most enduring and recognizable storefronts is preparing to close its doors. The Black, the iconic smoke shop and counterculture emporium that has anchored Ocean Beach’s Newport Avenue for more than half a century, has announced it is shutting down after 57 years in business.
In a message shared with the community, the shop confirmed that longtime owner Kurt Dornbusch is officially retiring, bringing to a close a chapter that began in 1968 and helped define Ocean Beach’s free-spirited identity for generations. “For 57 salty-air, sun-soaked years in Ocean Beach, The Black has been an OB staple – more than a shop, it’s been a vibe, a hangout, a heartbeat,” the post read, thanking the neighborhood for decades of support.
Founded in 1968 and named for the simple fact that it was profitable “from the start,” The Black quickly became far more than a retail operation. Located just steps from the ocean on Newport Avenue, the shop emerged during Ocean Beach’s rise as a hub of the Southern California counterculture movement, standing as a living artifact of the late-1960s and 1970s hippie era that reshaped the neighborhood’s character…