Clothing and electronic stores have Boxing Day. In Vancouver, head shops have 420 Day.
April 20 is the biggest sales day of the year for many Vancouver business owners who sell products related to marijuana.
In cannabis culture, “420” refers to smoking marijuana. The 20th day of the fourth month has evolved as a de facto national pot smoking day for many.
This was clear from the throngs of people openly smoking pot near the Vancouver Art Gallery April 20, particularly around 4:20 p.m.
“It was a fantastic day,” entrepreneur Jasper Kastiel told Business in Vancouver just after 5 p.m. Wednesday.
Kastiel, who owns the Bobby Dazzler store in Coquitlam Centre, did about $4,000 worth of sales in the afternoon – or about double what she would do on a normal Wednesday afternoon.
“The majority of that doubleness was from smoking accessories,” she said.
Kastiel does not sell pot but she sells a wide range of accessories – from T-shirts made by Vancouver-based Vansterdam Clothing to bongs, vaporizers, rolling papers and grinders.
One of Kastiel’s employees handed out business cards near the downtown Vancouver event but she did not sell any of her wares.
“You have to be careful on Robson Street,” she said. “There’s a lot of theft and shoplifting. You just want to give people a business card and a coupon for a discount.”
Kastiel has been in business for 21 years and moved to Coquitlam Centre four years ago from a location at Metropolis at Metrotown.
Criminologist Darryl Plecas of the University of the Fraser Valley has estimated B.C.’s marijuana industry produces about 20,000 jobs and generates about $4 billion in sales, including around $2 billion in exports.