Every April 20, something remarkable happens in San Francisco. Tens of thousands of people make their way to Robin Williams Meadow in Golden Gate Park, settle into the grass on a hill locals have called Hippie Hill for decades, and mark a holiday that has no greeting cards, no corporate sponsorship, and honestly, no official permission to exist anymore.
The city has canceled the official 4/20 Hippie Hill event three years running. People show up anyway.
The History Behind the Hill
Hippie Hill sits just off Haight Street, steps from the Upper Haight neighborhood that gave the 1960s counterculture much of its mythology. The informal 4/20 gathering there started long before cannabis was legal anywhere in the country, back when showing up was itself a small act of defiance.
For a few years, the city tried to formalize it. From 2017 through 2019, San Francisco issued permits, brought in fencing, security, medical tents, and cleanup crews. I personally had to traverse that crowd in 2019 and traffic was so gridlocked that I had to walk 3 miles to my dinner date on North Beach.
In plain speak, it was a hot mess. Regulated, but still a hot mess.
Then COVID shut the party down and budget cuts finished the job. The official event has been canceled three years running now, with city officials actively discouraging crowds from gathering in 2026.
And yet people still show up. They always do. By 1 p.m. the meadow fills. By 3 p.m. it’s wall-to-wall. At 4:20, the drum circles get louder and the whole hill does what it’s always done.
That’s the thing about Hippie Hill, and San Francisco in general. It doesn’t need a permit to feel like something. And with the recent shift in cannabis culture, you can expect the hill to smell a little less like weed when 4:20 rolls around.
Cannabis Culture Has Changed: The Options Are Actually Good Now
Gummies, beverages, patches, chocolates, microdosed melts that dissolve under your tongue in minutes have hit mainstream consumer markets. A lot of the best products right now are federally legal hemp-derived, which means you can order them online and have them delivered to your door anywhere in the country.
No talking to a human or having a special doctor’s note to get high.
For anyone looking to mark the holiday without the smoke, here are the products worth knowing about.
How to Actually Celebrate 4/20 in San Francisco This Year
If Hippie Hill is calling, go in informed. The city isn’t issuing permits for 2026, which means no fencing, no medical tents, and no porta-potties. Consuming cannabis in public is technically illegal in California, even in Golden Gate Park. Enforcement is historically low, but it isn’t zero.
For a more structured option, SF Spacewalk runs April 14 through 20, bringing cannabis education, live music, and curated events to licensed lounges and dispensaries across the city.
Either way, the holiday is very much alive in San Francisco. It just looks a little different than it used to.