HAZEL PARK (WWJ) – Plans for a music and marijuana festival at a Metro Detroit park have been shot down.
The Hazel Park City Council on Tuesday rejected a proposal to hold the “Spark in the Park” festival at Green Acres Park, on Woodward Heights near I-75.
The festival was expected to draw about 4,200 people and feature music from Julian Marley – son of reggae icon Bob Marley – and Ghostface Killah of WuTang Clan, among others. It was scheduled for June 18 and 19.
Organizers of the festival say they are hoping to normalize smoking marijuana in public.
While recreational marijuana was legalized in Michigan in 2018, it is still not legal to smoke it in public. That’s in part why council members voted to deny a permit for Spark in the Park.
City officials said they were also worried the park was too small for such large crowds.
Co-organizer Jared Jeffries told WWJ earlier this month “we have beer tents at just about every public fair in the area,” and no one seems to bat an eye.
“Despite the long fight to legalize cannabis, there remains a significant amount of stigma associated with cannabis consumption, and especially cannabis consumption in public,” Jeffries said.
Organizers of the event say they will find another park in a different city to host Spark in the Park.
Earlier this spring, Hazel Park City Council voted to decriminalize “magic mushrooms” and other psychedelic plants and fungi, becoming the third Michigan city to do so, behind Detroit and Ann Arbor.
Hazel Park will also be home to the state’s first cannabis lounge – Hot Box Social – which was expected to open this spring for private events, and eventually to the public later this year.
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