Crowds Descend On San Francisco's Hippie Hill For 4/20
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) – Hundreds gathered on and around Hippie Hill in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Friday, celebrating the first 4/20 day since recreational pot became legal in California.
The unofficial pot holiday started by five friends at a Marin County high school in 1971 and has grown to where festivities were planned worldwide, culminating with a synchronized smoke at 4:20 p.m.
Charles Vance took three weeks to hitchhike to San Francisco from Washington state to take part in the celebration.
"All the people around me," said Vance for the reason behind his journey. "Sharing the same vibe, the same experience. It's a communal feeling."
The gates opened at 9 a.m. and by noon several hundred people were already at the gathering.
Booths lined the area around the bottom of the hill, selling pot-laced eatables.
San Francisco officials said they expected at least 15,000 people to assemble in time for the 4:20 p.m. smoke.
Event producer and Haight Street business owner Alex Aquino said he expected the crowd to exceed the previous years because of it being a Friday, a sunshine-filled day and the legalization of recreational marijuana in the state.
"Last year, we had an incredible turnout and that was on a Thursday," Aquino said. "Today's a Friday so it's getting a lot bigger."