The Brief

Is it a dream? You walk into a store and are greeted with hundreds and hundreds of gorgeously designed high end chocolate bars and other offerings. Shelf after shelf, row after row. And yet, astonishingly, it is real.

The Chocolate Dispensary in Echo Park — part craft chocolate bar seller, part tasting room, part café — stocks over 1,000 chocolate products, from more than 100 chocolate makers across the world. That variety, according to co-owner Kala Maxym, makes it not only unique in L.A., but also, one of a precious few in the U.S. (And no, the name has nothing to do with marijuana. Though it's probably a great place to satiate the munchies).

The seemingly endless range of chocolate creations.

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Courtesy The Chocolate Dispensary

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On a recent visit to the store, which opened in December 2024, my husband and I quickly found our senses overloaded. Where to turn first? Rather than just organized by traditional "dark" or "milk" chocolate sections, the store uses quirkier categories: "hard core" (for super strong 80% - 100% cacao), '"vegan," (though chocolate is naturally dairy-free), "$12 and under," and "weird," among others. ("Weird" included things like a dill bar, a caramelized onion bar, and a tomato basil bar, in case you were interested.)

But the key, Maxym says, is to actually taste the chocolate, not just peruse the labels. She says she conceived of the store from the beginning as akin to a tasting room in a winery,  "a place that you could come in, and you didn't just buy it off a shelf and walk out, you could actually engage with it."

The store's drinking chocolate is in high demand.

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Courtesy The Chocolate Dispensary

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An "oasis" for customers

The genesis of the place came when Maxym, who had previously been an opera singer but had pivoted into wine and cheese tastings, was working at Silverlake Wine. And she thought “why isn’t there anything like this for chocolate?” That idea grew until one night she and her husband Dale Roy Robinson felt the entire project download on high from some creative cosmos when out to dinner.

Dale Roy Robinson and Kala Maxym outside their store.

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Courtesy The Chocolate Dispensary

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She still has the original notes on her phone, she says. "We wrote a business plan in about two weeks, and we opened nine months later," offering their vast selection of craft chocolate that's also ethically made and sustainably sourced.

A "$10 for 10" flight showcasing a range of chocolate makers.

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Courtesy The Chocolate Dispensary

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Maxym says the store has been successful from the beginning, and that it goes deeper than simply stocking excellent chocolate. The store seems to be a respite. Customers tell her "as horrible things in the world ebb and flow, we're an oasis for when they can't handle life right now."

She's developed strong relationships with chocolate makers around the world, speaking with as many as possible (as she says on the website, "time zones be damned") to ensure transparent sourcing.  Not to mention trips to countries like France and Italy where she and Robinson spend much of their days tasting top-of-the-line chocolate to bring home. (Cue the sound of the world's smallest violin.)

To help my husband and I through our paralyzing indecision, she proffered us a tasting flight: $10 for 10 bites. Genius. We carefully split each square in half, oohing and aahing as we found our favorites (he loved the one studded with coconut, I Ioved the one with rose petals and dried strawberries), and stared at each other quizzically as we found a few which weren’t quite to our taste (I swear there was one which tasted of curry).

To end our visit, she suggested we try one of the many options of hot chocolate. I took it, I sipped, I moaned with pleasure. It was French-style, unctuous and thick, and not too sweet. She said she makes it with a 100 percent cocoa powder, salt, vanilla, and dark chocolate disks, which gives it the richness.

And yes, I did literally lick the whole cup before I was done.

Nithya Raman turned the tide in the L.A. mayoral race by winning over large swathes of the city that voted for Karen Bass in 2022, according to an LAist analysis of election data.

Bass was a favorite in many areas that voted for Rick Caruso when she faced him in 2022. She held onto a majority of voters across South L.A., but lost much of her previous support.

The switchup came after Bass — a veteran in progressive politics — took a relatively-conservative approach on issues like policing and high-density housing developments compared to Raman, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority told its employees Friday to stop work, shut down their computers and stay off agency systems while it looked into “a potential security issue affecting our systems,” its chief executive confirmed to LAist.

That shutdown order was still in place Monday evening, according to a LAHSA official not authorized to speak on the record.

Gita O'Neill, the agency’s interim CEO, told LAist on Friday evening that the agency did not “yet have enough information to say definitively whether any sensitive or confidential personal information was accessed.”

She has not answered questions about whether or not services for unhoused people are disrupted.

Gita O’Neill, interim CEO of LAHSA, speaks ahead of the annual homeless count on Jan. 20, 2026.

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Jordan Rynning

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LAist

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LAHSA holds highly sensitive information collected from people experiencing homelessness in the region. The agency oversees the Homeless Management Information System, or HMIS, which includes unhoused people’s names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and disabilities, as well as self-reported mental health and substance abuse history, income sources and domestic violence history.

In a statement Monday, LAHSA said it had taken its internal computer systems offline “as a precaution” and “engaged outside cybersecurity specialists to investigate the nature and scope of the incident.” The statement, sent on O'Neill's behalf by outside public relations strategist Trevor Daley, continued to call it “a potential cybersecurity incident.”

The agency is “taking steps to maintain essential operations,” the statement added, saying LAHSA “remains open” while the investigation continues. It said the agency is working with its technical and legal teams.

What staff were told

Friday’s email to "Team LAHSA" carried the subject line "URGENT: Log Off and Shut Down for the Week." LAist obtained a copy, and O'Neill confirmed by text message that she had sent it.

“As a precaution while we look into a potential security issue affecting our systems, we're asking all staff to stop work and take their machines offline for the remainder of today and through the weekend,” the email said.

It told employees to “Log off and shut down your LAHSA computer” and not to log back in or connect to LAHSA systems, including email, “until you receive an all-clear from us.”

The email also told staff to report anything “unusual” before shutting down, such as “files renaming on their own, unexpected pop-ups or messages.”

What LAHSA leadership has said

In a texted response to LAist on Friday evening, O'Neill said she asked staff to take their computers offline “out of an abundance of caution” while the agency’s IT team assessed the situation.

“Our IT team is actively reviewing the situation now and working to understand exactly what occurred and whether any information was affected,” she wrote. “Protecting people’s personal and confidential information is a top priority in that review.”

Leaders of three LAHSA-funded service providers told LAist on Monday afternoon that they had not received any communications from LAHSA about the potential cybersecurity issue. All three use the HMIS system that holds unhoused people’s personal details.

Previous attacks against another LA housing agency

Another L.A. housing agency was previously hit by cyberattacks. The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles — a separate agency known as HACLA — has said hackers got inside its network in 2022 and may have accessed people’s names, Social Security numbers, financial accounts numbers and medical information.

Two years later, HACLA was breached again, according to an official notice, with hackers potentially accessing names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and phone numbers.

LAist reporter Aaron Schrank contributed reporting to this story.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath announced Monday that she is running to be the county’s first elected chief executive. Horvath is the only candidate so far to enter the race, which is set for 2028.

The new executive post will take the place of the county’s appointed CEO and implement key priorities of the county Board of Supervisors. The executive will oversee the county budget, which is currently roughly $50 billion, and labor relations with more than 100,000 employees.

Horvath was first elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2022 and was re-elected in June to another four-year term. She represents the county’s 3rd District, which covers the San Fernando Valley and parts of the Westside and Central Los Angeles. She is a former mayor of West Hollywood.

The supervisor made her announcement Monday via social media and her campaign website. She called the race a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.”

The backstory

Voters created the position in 2024 when they approved Measure G, which was proposed by Supervisors Horvath and Janice Hahn.

Among other changes, the measure allowed the Board of Supervisors to expand from five to nine members by 2030 and established an independent Ethics Commission, which held its first meeting last month.

The pushback

On Monday, Supervisor Kathryn Barger issued a statement saying she believed it was “premature” to campaign for the new county executive position when it remained unclear whether “the office itself is constitutional.”

Barger pointed to questions raised by former federal judge Stephen Larson about whether California’s Constitution allows an elected county executive to veto board decisions, control county contracts and take on powers state law currently gives the Board of Supervisors.

“Moving forward with an office that would fundamentally change how Los Angeles County is governed, without first resolving these questions, is putting the cart before the horse,” Barger said in her statement. “We need clarity.”

The primary election is scheduled for March 7, 2028.