Organizers of the annual 4/20 celebration are vowing to vociferously fight the Vancouver Park Board bill they received Friday, and early indications suggest they just might win.
The bill in question checks in at $67,000 and is related to fees incurred at the April 20 smokeout at Sunset Beach that attracted 40,000 attendees.
Rally co-organizer Dana Larsen said his agreement with the board stipulated that his group cover field repairs alone, but the bill he received covers a laundry list of expenditures: $32,000 in staffing costs, close to $8,000 in lost revenues from the closure of the Vancouver Aquatic Centre, concession stand closures and various other rental fees.
The fields adjacent to Sunset Beach were heavily damaged at the event and have been closed since. They’re slated to re-open within two weeks and the repair costs are slightly north of $9,000.
“We’re going to pay the re-seeding costs — I’ve made that clear,” Larsen said. “We do not intend on paying these other inflated costs that they’ve given to us nor have I ever said I would.”
Park board chair Michael Wiebe says there’s room for negotiating around how much will be paid and when.
“We wanted to give a full breakdown of what all the costs would be,” Wiebe said. “The public was asking for a full breakdown and that’s what it is.”
There are many areas for wiggle room. For starters, Larsen’s group was billed $5,300 for an event permit fee despite being denied the permit in question. A $12,000 line item around washroom and light rentals also needs be figured out, as some of those washrooms were rented to Larsen’s group, while others weren’t.
Wiebe doesn’t expect Larsen to pay for the single-largest cost — $32,000 for staffing — included in the tab either.
“I don’t assume that they’re going to be paying those [costs] as well but that’s up to the organizers,” he said.
Rather than argue over costs, Wiebe said he’s focused on re-locating the event for next year. The PNE, the False Creek Flats and near the south side of the Cambie Bridge are in the discussion at this point.
Larsen’s preference is the PNE, but the mere suggestion of that in early May elicited widespread opposition from the neighbourhood. He said the Cambie Bridge option is less than ideal because it’s a “big mud bowl.”
“It’s unfortunate that people who live near the PNE don’t want events to be held at the PNE,” Larsen said. “I find that quite bizarre that someone would move next to the PNE and then complain about any events being held there.”
Wiebe’s preferred spot is adjacent to the Cambie Bridge, in the area that housed the Cavalia horse show earlier this year.
“We can roll out real grass, put the food trucks around the outside, have the booths on the cement and have a stage facing downtown so that the sound is away from the residents,” Wiebe said. “It’s got easy access to transit, you can bike on the Seawall to get there.”
The park board chair is hopeful a spot is chosen within three months so that the necessary planning and legwork can begin.
“This is about us growing with the organization to make sure that we can do something [together] because just like they stated last year, it’s going to happen because it’s a human rights issue,” Wiebe said. “It’s a protest in a public place. That is going to happen. Our job is to try to find solutions to make sure that the public is getting the best out of it as well as the organization.”
The city issued a news release late Thursday night suggesting the total costs surrounding the rally was $245,379, a figure derived from events at both Sunset Beach and at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The highest figures from the city include $170,000 in policing and $25,000 in engineering fees, neither of which have to be paid by Larsen’s group.
The 2016 event cost the city roughly $150,000, of which $99,000 went to policing expenditures.
