SAN FRANCISCO—This Wednesday the annual 4/20 celebration will be at Golden Gate Park. Officials from the San Francisco Police Department and Park Rangers will be present at the event. The police made an announcement at San Francisco’s Park Station that its presence will be increased for the event. There will be additional uniformed and plain clothes officers around the park and in the surrounding neighborhoods. There will also be juvenile probation officers.
The streets surrounding the park will be closed and traffic and patrol officers will be actively monitoring the area and ticketing and towing vehicles that are illegally parked in residential and commercial areas. Authorities will also be halting any concessions and booths that are evident in the park and nearby neighborhoods. This will be the third year city officials have put together a plan to handle anticipated 4/20 crowds, after past events led to heavy traffic, damage to public and private property and strains on authorities, Municipal Railway and park resources, Board of Supervisors President London Breed indicated.
Breed’s district includes some parts of the park and nearby neighborhoods. Breed wants the event to be safe and peaceful for both residents and visitors. There are no sponsors for the annual event so organizers can be held responsible.
“Our goal is to ensure public safety, and as such, there will be no tolerance for visitors who are using ‘4/20’ as an excuse to damage our parks and neighborhoods,” said Breed. Past events led to the Recreation and Park Department cleaning up tons of trash.
New this year, is that temporary portable toilets that will be installed on Waller and Stanyan Streets. The park will have more garbage cans and compost bins. Volunteers are expected to help out the Recreation and Park staff to clean up the park. Local community organizations such as Taking it to the Streets have also decided to volunteer to help clean up the park on Thursday, April 21.
Many streets will be will closed for the event. Such roads include Haight, Page, and Waller Streets between Masonic and Stanyan Streets; Stanyan between Fredrick and Oak Streets; Shrader Street between Beulah and Waller Streets; Oak and Waller Streets at Ashbury, Clayton, Shrader, Cole and Belvedere Streets; Frederick at Shrader and Beulah at Shrader and Cole.
Officials may close other streets in the region if necessary for public safety. Some bus lines will be affected as well starting at 3 p.m. Buses lines being affected include the N-Judah, NX-N Express, 6-Parnassus, 7-Haight/Noriega, 7R-Haight/Noriega Rapid, 33-Ashbury/18th, 37-Corbett and 43-Masonic.
