There will be no 4/20 cannabis festival happening in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park next month, the city’s Recreation and Park Department and event organizer Sounds Bazaar announced Tuesday.
The city could not afford to staff the event due to a budget crunch, and the organizers had a hard time getting sponsorship, they said, due to economic challenges within the cannabis industry.
“We understand the disappointment and hope to make it up with a great event next year,” said organizer Alex Aquino.
The city will instead hold its inaugural Peace, Love and Volo Field Day at the site in Robin Williams Meadow and Hippie Hill. In addition to cornhole and bocce ball, there will be volleyball and kickball tournaments organized by the nonprofit Volo Sports, which supports youth sports programs around the country. There will be no stage, live music or cannabis booths.
For the less active cannabis enthusiast, there will be a first-ever SF Weed Week for April 13 to 20. For seven nights, growers will premier world-class strains at seven San Francisco lounges. Events include an exhibition of decorative mylar cannabis bags, speaker’s forums featuring growers and journalists, lots of dispensary visits and happy hour parties.
The 4/20 festival began decades ago as a protest and grew to an unofficial gathering of thousands, said cannabis journalist David Downs, who is the creator of SF Weed Week.
“People were coming in from every corner of the state. There were minors, there were dogs there, fighting. There were sales of everything. I think there were fights there. I think one year a gunshot went off,” he said.
So, the event had to be made into an official festival. The point of regulating Hippie Hill was to create a safe environment, he said. But that safe environment was expensive for the city, which had to install fencing, hire rangers and provide medical support.
In recent years, the number of licensed cannabis cultivators has fallen, and the number of licensed dispensaries has grown. Money is moving in a different way, said Downs.
“Maybe groups are choosing not to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a booth,” Downs said. “Maybe they’re reaching people digitally.”