This coming Thursday, stoners all over the world will get together to celebrate 4/20. In San Francisco, that means a pilgrimage to Golden Gate Park’s Hippie Hill, where thousands gather annually to smoke, dance, celebrate, and be left alone by local cops.
According to SFGate, the free celebration got a little bit of the Bay Area’s entrepreneurial spirit this year - when a fake event page for the Hippie Hill celebration popped up on Eventbrite, charging $20 a head for tickets to the open event at SF’s most popular public park.
As soon as locals got wind of the fake tickets they took to social media to warn fellow stoners. SF rapper, teacher, activist and cannabis advocate Equipto jumped on Twitter to make it known that the city’s celebration was still free - and to call out the fake sellers, of course.
HOLD UP,, I JUST HEARD THEY'RE CHARGING $ AT HIPPY HILL ON HAIGHT STREET.?!?!?!?! THIS IS WHAT THE WEED GAME HAS TURNED TO.?!?! NO RESPECT..
— Equipto (@EQUIPTO) April 14, 2017
The fake event page selling tickets was taken down yesterday, but changes are still coming to this year’s celebration.
With city officials unable to curb the event, Mayor Ed Lee and his administration will instead make the event city-sanctioned. This thursday will be the first Hippie Hill 4/20 celebration with city permits and sponsored vendors.
“We’ve had discussions about how to end this event, but the reality is that it would break into four or five different events and then we couldn’t control any of it.” Mayor Lee said.
This year’s event will have trashcans, porta potties, traffic control and an ambulance on stand-by.
But while Possession and cultivation of cannabis are legal in California, smoking in public parks definitely is not. To get to the bottom of the seemingly contradictory event, Bay Area local CBS News caught up with San Francisco Parks Department Director of Policy and Public Affairs Sarah Madland and asked her if the city was essentially breaking the law by sponsoring the event.
Madland’s reply was simple, “Welcome to San Francisco.”