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Pot protest organized for Canada Day despite unpaid 4/20 bill

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Organizers of the annual July 1st Cannabis Day protest plan to move forward with a rally at Thornton Park.

Dana Larsen with the group Cannabis Culture says, before people choose a side, he wants to provide some context.

“We’ve been putting on Cannabis Day at the Vancouver Art Gallery for over 20 years every year. We applied for a permit for the art gallery last July about a year ago, just after our last Cannabis Day event. The city didn’t back to us for over 10 months, which they normally just ignore all of our permit applications. Finally, a few weeks ago the city contacted us and said, ‘you can’t use the art gallery because we’re putting on a youth sports day event. You have to go somewhere else.”

He adds they weren’t going to challenge the city on that, so they chose another location. Larsen predicts there will be several thousand people attending the event.

Park Board Chair Michael Wiebe explains the main reason for denying the permit is because marijuana is not legal yet and any kind of smoking is banned in all Vancouver parks.

“The main thing is it’s currently illegal and it’s against our no-smoking bylaw that we have in our parks. It contradicts our bylaws and because of the legality of it, our staff isn’t trained to deal with it so we are not permitting it at this time.”

Wiebe says Vancouver Police will be on hand monitoring the situation and park rangers will also be there. “We looked at maybe putting fencing around the women’s memorial, but when we were talking to the association in charge of the memorial, they said that they’d rather not have it fenced off.”

This latest pro-pot rally comes as organizers of the 4/20 rally have yet to pay off the bill from that event. Organizers say they’ve put a cheque worth as much as $5,000 in the mail, but Wiebe says they’ve yet to receive any money for damage caused to the field near Second Beach.

“That’s great to hear that there’s a cheque… but that’s not what we’re looking for. We’re looking for a better relationship with Dana and find a proper facility for them to utilize next year.”

The field, which underwent two months of repairs, has been re-opened.

Saturday’s rally at Thornton Park is set to take place between noon and 8 p.m.

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