Park board commissioners probably shouldn’t hold their breath waiting for organizers of this year’s pot-puffing 4/20 rally at Sunset Beach to pony up for costs.
Head organizer Jeremiah Vandermeer said after paying for security, toilets, garbage collection and other services, the event was left with a surplus of about $18.
“We budget in advance, so at the end of the year we really don’t have much left over,” Vandermeer said.
That event, which is estimated to have drawn 40,000 people to the beach at its peak, and another, much smaller gathering at the Vancouver Art Gallery racked up a combined bill of $245,379, according to a cost rundown released by the city on Thursday.
Of that, $34,630 was for park board services, including the re-seeding of the Sunset Beach lawn that was left trampled after the event.
Vandermeer said organizers are interested in finding a way to help pay to restore the grass, an expense he pegged at less than $10,000. One option they’re considering is to collect donations.
“That’s something that we felt we’d love to be able to do,” he said. “As for the policing costs… that’s not something we really feel we should be paying for.”
The bulk of this year’s expenses involved policing, which cost $170,670 altogether. That’s a steep increase over the $99,400 spent policing 4/20 in 2016, a hike that’s left organizers scratching their heads.
“It all seems very high,” Vandermeer said. “We don’t think that there’s that many police needed because it’s such an easygoing event. Actually, the police themselves come up and tell us at the event – every time – that it’s one of the best events in the whole city, it’s the easiest to police.”
The Vancouver Police Department has not responded to a request for clarification on the jump in costs.
Policing the 2016 event was also roughly double what it cost in 2015, which required $52,000 worth of VPD resources. Authorities previously attributed that spike to the decision to move the main protest event from the art gallery to the beach, and the fresh logistical problems that created.
The City of Vancouver hasn’t threatened to bill organizers for any of the costs outside of the park board’s expenses, and board chair Michael Wiebe admitted even those will be difficult to recoup since commissioners voted against granting a permit for the event.
“I think they’ll give us the amount that they see fit and we’re going to make sure that we get as much as we can,” Wiebe said.
“It would have been a little bit easier to get the funding if we had done permitting, but obviously the will of the board is that we don’t want to have the festival on park board land.”
To that end, the board is already working with organizers to find a new location for next year’s 4/20, potentially on a city-owned property such as the dusty lot at the foot of the Cambie Bridge.
Organizers’ first choice is to host the event at Hastings Park, but officials at the Pacific National Exhibition suggested it would be difficult for them to meet their booking criteria, which includes insurance and liability requirements.
The PNE already declined to book this year’s 4/20, and “does not expect that decision to change in the future,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
With files from CTV Vancouver’s David Molko
