Founded in 1968 and owned by Kurt Dornbusch since 1981, The Black is a 57-year Ocean Beach institution at 5017 Newport Ave, named in 2018 by High Times magazine as one of the Top 10 Legendary Headshops in America. The half-block-from-the-sand storefront anchors Newport Avenue's main shopping block a short walk from the OB Pier and sits at the heart of the surf-and-skate retail cluster that includes Ocean Beach Surf & Skate. The inventory spans smoking accessories, hand-blown glass pipes and water pipes, rolling papers, vaporizers, records, comic books, jewelry, incense, candles, dragon figurines, housewares, OB-branded apparel, and offbeat gifts, organized as what the shop itself calls a department store, gift shop, and smoke shop in one. The counterculture merchandise overlap extends across the corridor to crystal, tarot, and metaphysical gift retailers like Tree of Life Metaphysical Books and Gifts, forming a bohemian retail micro-economy that has defined Newport Avenue since the late-1960s hippie era. The shop's own e-commerce handles out-of-state orders for OB-themed apparel and select smoke-shop inventory. The most complex operation the store handles is the curated high-end glass program, including collectible and limited-run hand-blown pieces from named American glassblowers, sold alongside the bread-and-butter rolling papers and vaporizer inventory that built the shop's 1968 reputation.