Activists vow to hold the city’s 23rd annual 4/20 “smoke out” protest at Sunset Beach next month although the park board denied them a permit to hold the event at the public park.
Jeremiah Vandermeer, Cannabis Culture editor and one of the organizers with the 420 Events Society, believes an ideal location for the event is the PNE but he said they were denied access by the city-appointed board of directors, which includes elected councillors.
“I see that the park board is in a tough position,” he said following commissioners' decision March 6.
“We did have place that we wanted to go, that was the PNE. Now for whatever reasons, they decided they didn’t want us there this year because of political considerations.”
Vandermeer said the park board commissioners should have taken staff recommendation to grant a permit. He gave credit to Vision comm. Catherin Evans for supporting regulation and taxation over “prohibition.”
“Fighting for the rights of cannabis users is the right thing to do,” he said. “The reason we’re having the protest in the first place – and this is a protest – is because we think our civil right have been affected by prohibition in a negative way for many years and so we are using civil disobedience in order to break bad laws that we think hurt people instead of help them.”
The protest moved to Sunset Beach for the first time last year after the previous site around the Vancouver Art Gallery, used since 1995, was fenced closed for construction. NPA commissioner John Coupar said the issue had been “downloaded” on the park board.
Last year, an estimated 40,000 people visited the event, which cost the city close to $150,000, of which the park board picked up $25,000. Policing costs were an additional $100,000.
In a CBC radio interview the next morning, Coupar and cannabis activist Dana Larsen discussed their points of view and the costs associated with hosting, policing and cleaning up after a day-long event that many celebrate as a festival of cannabis promotion and awareness.
Without a permit, the park board cannot easily leverage hosting costs from an organization, but Larsen said the organization intended to chip in to cover such costs as sanitation and garbage removal.
“We will pay those costs,” he told Early Edition host Stephen Quinn.
He said the organizers agreed to pay $40,000 if they received a permit for the event but said they are willing to chip in either way.
“We’ve never received a bill,” he said. “No one has tried to get us to pay for anything.”
At that point, Coupar interjected, “I’m sure the park board would be happy to send you a bill for last year – if you’re indicting you’re willing to pay it.”
At Monday’s meeting, debate among commissioners split along philosophical lines of regulation versus prohibition of the weed that is still widely classified an illegal substance in Canada. There was also debate about the use and purpose of public parks and the consequences of allowing smoking in spite of a ban in city parks.
The seven commissioners debated the same event last year, a burden Park board chairman and Green commissioner Michael Wiebe described as “frustrating.” They did not grant a permit to the 420 Event Society last year either.
In his report to the board, general manager Malcom Bromley said the park board could follow the example of the city in its response to the dozens of pot dispensaries that opened over several years. A permit would sanction the event and a marketplace, but not the sale of any particular product, and would mitigate risk and liability for the park board.
“From a legal perspective right now, what we would be condoning is the sale of items at the event but not specific to any particular good,” aid Bromley. “If we look at the language of the bylaws and the rules that govern [dispensaries in Vancouver], they stay away from endorsing or acknowledging the substance. It’s more about regulating the location between [dispensaries]. It’s walking a fine line in trying to regulate something that is currently illegal.”
The board decided it did not want to walk that line.
Three NPA commissioners, Sarah-Kirby Yung, Casey Crawford and Coupar, as well as the Green’s Stuart Mackinnon, voted against the staff recommendation to grant a permit to the organizers at the beachside park.
“To approve the permit would be to validate, to endorse this on parks land,” said Mackinnon. “The only way we can say no, this is not an appropriate use of park space, is to say no to them.”
Wiebe, Evans and independent commissioner Erin Shum voted in favour of granting a permit.
Twitter: @MHStewart
