Vancouver’s only Green party councillor hopes to persuade local politicians to find an alternate location for the city’s biggest cannabis festival.
‘Many residents of the West End have expressed their opposition to the 4/20 event at Sunset Beach due to the smoking and impact on air quality, noise, trash, and negative impacts on sensitive grassy park lands,’ Adriane Carr states in her notice of motion.
Her compromise is to gain council’s approval to instruct city staff to look at the feasibility of hosting 4/20 at one of three sites.
They are the Pacific National Exhibition, the north side of False Creek, and Larwill Park, which is bounded by West Georgia, Cambie, Beatty, and Dunsmuir streets.
4/20 has been held on April 20 in Vancouver every year since 1995. It moved to Stanley Park last year after 20 years on the north lawn of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Earlier this month, the Vancouver park board voted to refuse permits for 4/20 at Sunset Beach.
The motion was backed by Green commissioner Stuart Mackinnon, a close political ally of Carr’s, and the three NPA commissioners.
The park board has banned smoking in local parks and on beaches under its jurisdiction.
Organizers have said they’ll hold a marijuana smoke-in on April 20 at Sunset Beach with or without permits.
Carr recognizes that marijuana advocates have a constitutional right to freedom to gather on public property.
‘The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the fundamental rights of Canadians including freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, which requires the City of Vancouver to accommodate non-violent public protests such as the 4/20 event,’ Carr states in the preamble to her motion.
