The usual battle between Vancouver’s 4-20 celebration organizers and the city’s park board intensified on Monday as a Parks Board Commissioner introduced an “urgent” motion to cancel the Cypress Hill performance scheduled for Saturday’s event in Sunset Beach Park, and the Board voted to support the motion.
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As the first 4/20 since legalization—billed as the 25th anniversary of the Vancouver event—the celebration might have been well-attended on its own, but Parks Board Commissioner John Coupar says adding Cypress Hill to the mix is likely to create a massive crowd he claims will damage the park.
“It’s just my way of saying I think this has gotten out of hand, 4/20 has gotten too large and it’s the responsibility of the park board to step up and say, look, we don’t want to facilitate this,” Coupar told reporters ahead of the vote.
Despite the Park Board vote, Mayor Kennedy Stewart said he would not allow police to shut the event down if organizers don’t abide by the Park Board’s wishes.
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“I don’t think that there’s any way that you want to put your police in front of 40,000 people that are expecting to come to an event. And I don’t think anybody in Vancouver would think that’s reasonable, especially with no time [for us] to organize,” Stewart said in a radio interview.
