Weedorama was supposed to be a daylong celebration of all things cannabis on that most stony of daze, er days, April 20, or 4/20 which if you didn't already know is numerological pot parlance for getting high. The events organizers, 420 Magazine, billed it as a celebration of “medical cannabis freedom,” a victory lap for all the “hard won victories for patient access and rights to medical marijuana for everyone in California.”
Thousands of stoners from Southern California and beyond would gather to the listen to jam bands, peruse pot merchandise purveyed by all the top brands, watch some Mixed Martial Arts fights, partake in a joint rolling competition, and medicate to their marijuana-loving-hearts' content in the special tent area. But sadly, Weedorama is not going down as planned on 4/20 and the culprit isn't even something as nefarious as Johnny Law, or even the Obama Administration.
]
Instead, the culprit is parking–or rather, the lack of it. In a statement issued yesterday, 420 Times editor Dave Brian said the event was being postponed because the “substantial” parking lots that had been promised for Weedorama were no longer available. No further details were provided about how or why the parking fell through, but Brian promised that ticket holders would receive a full refund.
“Unfortunately, the need of substantial parking is now gone from this location and couldn't be replaced by April 20th and threatened to diminish the WEEDORAMA visitor experience,” Brian stated. “We just couldn't let that happen–nobody wants to walk a mile during a warm San Bernadino [sic] day to and from the event. It would of been a total nightmare with 10,000 cars on the limited street parking.”
According to Brian, Weedorama will still happen, but on an undetermined later date. “We're regrouping and discussing the opportunity with other partners now, with the intention of announcing a new WEEDORAMA date in the near future,” he said. “When it happens, WEEDORAMA will be worth the price of admission . . . We're disappointed that we won't be celebrating 4/20 together this year, but we'll make some great memories soon.”
Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
Award-winning investigative journalist Nick Schou is Editor of OC Weekly. He is the author of Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb (Nation Books 2006), which provided the basis for the 2014 Focus Features release starring Jeremy Renner and the L.A. Times-bestseller Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love’s Quest to bring Peace, Love and Acid to the World, (Thomas Dunne 2009). He is also the author of The Weed Runners (2013) and Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood (2016).
