Who has the right to sell vendor spots at Vancouver’s annual pot “protest” on April 20, aka 4/20?
Several vendors who participated in this year’s unsanctioned event at Sunset Beach say they were misled by the organizer because no one technically owns the rights to sell space and that wasn’t made clear to them.
But the event organizer argues that the money raised goes toward funding the massive demonstration and furthering cannabis deregulation.
Robert Moore founded World Cannabis in 2014 with a couple of other marijuana advocates in Vancouver but is now the sole proprietor of the organization.
Despite Canada’s legalization of cannabis in 2018, the city’s 4/20 gatherings draw marijuana enthusiasts from across the Lower Mainland. Many of them are protesting Canada’s current cannabis regime, which Moore says suppresses minority users and has several restrictive guidelines.
Moore told V.I.A. that his 4/20 event is non-profit and that all of the money vendors pay for space is considered “donations” to support the protest.
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Vancouver Lawyer Kyla Lee said collecting revenue for spots at an unsanctioned event with no permit is illegal.
“At a high level of technicality, it could be characterized as fraud. It’s really no different than me saying ‘I will sell you my car’ when the car actually belongs to another person,” she told V.I.A.
“Do I expect criminal charges? No. I also think there is no public interest in charges for fraud in these circumstances and it’s not as though the vendors who purchased space were completely blind to the risks they were taking,” Lee explained.
Lee said the vendors knew the event is unsanctioned so it complicates their position in arguing they should be entitled to a refund.
“This is just the risk of doing business in a non-regulated way,” she noted.
World Cannabis plans to host a “Global Marijuana March” and “pop-up market” on May 6 and it does not have a permit for this event. It also advertises space but does not indicate in the advertisement that these payments are donations.
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