[420 Girl]

BC: So if a person rolled a marijuana joint in a room full of cops, what do you think would be the outcome?

Read on.

The scenario unfolded at the Jan. 20 meeting of the Vancouver Police Board when "Bud the Oracle of the Unincorporated Deuteronomical Society" rolled a joint as he sat in the back of the room.

The meeting was held at the new Mount Pleasant community centre. Bud and the society's "registrar"--some bearded dude named Robin--showed up to talk marijuana.

While Robin quoted the Bible and criticized Canada's drug laws, Bud--wearing a visor that appeared to have marijuana leaves hanging from it--sprinkled weed onto a rolling paper.

Mayor Gregor Robertson, Police Chief Jim Chu, his deputy chiefs and several senior cops were in the room.

A cop sitting next to Bud caught the attention of Deputy Chief Bob Rolls, who was a few seats away.

"Should we let him smoke it?" the cop quietly asked Rolls as Robin continued to speak.

Rolls shook his head from side to side in response. Bud must have got the picture. He failed to spark up the doobie and left.

That didn't stop him, however, from getting one of his cohorts to later record his thoughts for a YouTube video.

"I bet you I'm the first person at a police board meeting to roll a joint and walk out of there unmolested," he said, smiling into the camera's lens.

Somehow, I don't think Bud would be smiling if he had tried the same stunt in 1971 in Gastown.

PUBLIC STONING

In 1971, the VPD infamously disrupted a marijuana protest in Gastown, where news reports from the time say police charged people on horseback and beat the crowd with batons.

It's a day in history the VPD would rather forget. But artist Stan Douglas thought otherwise when Woodward's developer Ian Gillespie commissioned him to produce an art piece for the Woodward's project.

Douglas recreated a scene from the riot in a huge photograph now installed in the atrium of the redevelopment.

So what's Police Chief Jim Chu think about the installation?

"It's a piece of art, and I don't consider it anything else than a piece of art," he said. "Art is in the eye of the beholder and I'm not an art critic."

But displaying a huge photograph of police beating people with batons isn't exactly good PR for the VPD?

"Well I think a lot of people can look at what is happening today--the reality versus what may have happened 40 years ago--and hopefully they're not attributing things from the '60s that are the practice or the beliefs of the VPD today."

Added Chu: "That's the past. There's things in the history of the VPD that certainly wouldn't be something we'd cherish and move forward with today."

Mayor Gregor Robertson, who is chairperson of the Vancouver Police Board, acknowledged the controversy tied to Douglas' piece, called Abbot & Cordova.

"It was a moment in time and I know some people are upset about it but it tells a story about a piece of Vancouver history," the mayor said. "But I think we've come a long way since then. You wouldn't see that in this day and age. So it's an interesting contrast to what's happening in these times where there's a ton of community support work done by the police."

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