The crowd of thousands and the smoky haze have departed from Vancouver’s Sunset Beach after Friday’s 4/20 pro-cannabis event, and work has begun to nurse the West End field back to health.

Local residents out for a walk in the ocean-facing park on Saturday morning told CTV News the damage didn’t appear as bad as last year, but according to the Vancouver Park Board it could take months to get things back to normal.

“The [plastic decking] organizers have put down … had some limited mitigation … but our field is in pretty rough shape,” said Park Board chair Stuart Mackinnon.

He said the field will be closed so it can be cleaned, and aerated, irrigated and re-seeded. He hopes it can reopen by July 1, but said there’s no guarantee.

“Because of this overuse year after year, the field can’t take much more,” he said.

One rally organizer, however, thinks Mackinnon is exaggerating the damage.

City crews showed up at 1 a.m. to join volunteers cleaning up the park. The city removed a large pile of garbage volunteer trash-pickers had left on the field. Mackinnon said he was disappointed organizers didn’t have a sanitation company take it away.

“That came at the tax payer expense, for city crew to come in here at 1 o’clock in the morning to pick up the mountains of garbage,” he said.

Dana Larsen, another Vancouver 4/20 organizer, said the event is willing to foot the bill for city and Park Board expenses.

He expects to pay the City of Vancouver about $20,000 and reimburse the Park Board somewhere between $10,000 and $20,000.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do tonight to get this place cleaned up,” he told CTV News toward the end of the festival.

One of the things cleaners missed, however, was a gummy a CTV News reporter found in the grass. It resembled pot-laced gummies for sale at the farmer’s market-style festival the day before.

Mackinnon also showed reporters cigarette butts and bottle caps still littering the lawn.

“Maybe a child’s going to pick it up and put it in their mouth,” he said.

Some local parents walking in the park the day after agreed.

“The kids are playing always over there. So it’s not very safe, I don’t think,” said one mother.

Others, however, didn’t seem terribly concerned. One mother pointed out her child could pick up something off the ground and eat it anywhere in the city.

“I think it’s pretty contained,” she said. “There are people here cleaning it up right now.”

Alice Garani, another local resident, said she doesn’t think the damage from 4/20 is the worst she’s seen. She’s more concerned about discarded needles she sometimes sees.

“I’m not super happy to have it [4/20] in my backyard … maybe it’s a little bit selfish … but it is what it is,” she said.

According to the Vancouver police, first responders attended 23 medical emergencies at the pro-cannabis event and 10 overdose calls. Eight people were taken to hospital. Police say there were no major incidents, but one man was arrested for breaching his release conditions and a youth is also facing assault and weapons charges after a pepper spray incident.

This year’s gathering was likely the last before recreational cannabis is legalized. Organizers have said that even though smoking the drug will likely be legal next year, the event that’s a mixture of protest and celebration will go on.

Mackinnon, however, says that to him event looks more like a trade show than a rally and he thinks it should move elsewhere.

“I would ask them to be good citizens, good neighbours, good residents and stay out of our parks,” he said. “I would encourage them to go to a more suitable place for a tradeshow. We have the convention centre, we have the PNE.”

With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Allison Hurst