Vancouver’s Annual 4/20 Protest Event Scheduled for Sunset Beach, Despite Opposition

Photo credit: unknown author | Wikipedia

Don’t be surprised if Vancouver’s Sunset Beach looks a little hazy on Wednesday, April 20.

The beach is this year’s setting for the annual 4/20 protest, an event organized by marijuana legalization activists. The protest has been taking place annually for two decades. This year’s event has a new home and is anticipated to attract larger crowds than ever.

In past years, the setting for the protest was downtown’s Vancouver Art Gallery Plaza. However, worries about growing crowds, traffic and tensions with neighbours led the city to request that protestors change their venue.  Despite opposition from Vancouver’s park board, organizers settled on Sunset Beach as their new home, between English Bay and the Burrard Street Bridge. 

This year’s event (like previous ones) is not sanctioned by the city or the park board. However, organizers have released detailed plans about what to expect. The protest site extends along 250 metres of seawall and beach at the mouth of False Creek. Some 400 vendors will be selling wares in an atmosphere that resembles a hybrid of a craft market and farmers market. A large protest stage will be set up at one end of the site.

The 2015 protest site. Photo credit: CC | Flickr

Though the event is officially labeled a protest, critics have pointed out that it feels a lot like an open-air market. This year, some 200 vendors have paid $300 a piece to sell their products at the protest, according to a report in the Vancouver Sun. Critics also note that the city had to bear $100,000 in direct costs from last year’s event, between expenses for fire and police services, sanitation and traffic management. Furthermore, safety concerns have prompted the park board to close the nearby Vancouver Aquatic Centre, which is used by 1,000 people a day, during the protest.

Crowds in the tens of thousands are expected to turn out for Wednesday’s events.