14 People Ticketed Halfway Through 4/20 Festival
DENVER, Colo. (CBS4) – People gathered at Denver's Civic Center Park for day one of this year's two-day 4/20 celebration on Saturday.
In addition to starting a day earlier than in years past there are also new signs that organizers have put up to remind festival goers that while recreational pot is legal, smoking it in public is not.
Security at this year's event is also much more noticeable with everyone going into the park being screened and all bags being checked.
Denver police also has a large presence there and Cmd. Matt Murray says half way through the festival officers had written 14 citations for public consumption.
He also said the majority of those people were from Colorado.
"It's been pretty well advertised that that's illegal. Marijuana is legal, the police department is certainly not out there trying to find people to write tickets to. These are blatant violations. We just ask people to be reasonable think about this, protect the right that they've got to smoke marijuana and do it legally," said Murray.
Murray didn't say how many officers were on staff but did say traffic patrol was increased. They specifically brought in officers who are trained to identify people who are driving under the influence of drugs.
There is expected to be an even larger turnout on Sunday.