Gastown Riot Essay

The GasTown Riot of 1971 was a crucial turning point in the history of Vancouver. This pivotal riot had taken place in the neighbourhood of GasTown on August 7th, 1971 (Boudreau 2021). The Saturday consisted of a riot between police and the Youth International Party who were in opposition to the illegalization of marijuana as well as the protesting against Operation Dustpan (Clément 2020) which was intended to insert undercover units to hold drug users accountable for their actions (Miceli 2018). Although intentions of the youth were peaceful, police broke out this smoke-in protest in violence and hostility causing a significant division between these two groups. This division had an effect on society as well, both politically and generationally.

The community became largely segregated into elders and public versus youth. Hippies and yippies were viewed as the“parasites on the community” (Miceli 2018) causing not only a division between society, but the feeling of being unwanted, targeted, and attacked by police and the public. “Booth’s suggestions were in keeping with the police department’s view that the best way to deal with the “hippie problem” was through “strict law enforcement,” which translated into young people who congregated on West 4th Avenue being regularly stopped by police…These tactics soon resulted in tensions and confrontations between police and youth, the latter of whom felt they were being harassed.” (Boudreau 2019). This had officially created tensions and set the division between police and youth. “In 1970, after being given notice to evict a temporary youth hostel at Jericho Base, hundreds of hippies remained holed up in the building, refusing to leave. The Vancouver Police came and, armed with batons and donning helmets, they forcibly removed the squatters. It was a violent skirmish leaving many injured and homeless” (Miceli 2018). This shows the societal hatred of youth, the increasing and continuous violence proves to show the conservative elders’ views and how it affected youth by banning them from certain locations and publicizing their hatred

The riot represented the ongoing efforts of the state with the amounts of police brutality and the public inquiries to end protests and public debates over political issues to preserve the law of order. Younger people were also against the idea of facism, where most adult conservatives would disagree, again creating that division between the population which is an ongoing situation leading to the present. We can tell today that many older conservatives versus younger leftists still have this “debate” of politics which may end in verbal aggression or other forms of violence (Boudreau 2019). There has been little progress regarding relations between youth and police although it isn’t so significant. The aftermath of the GasTown Riot consisted of many arrests, charges, injuries, and destruction. Youth were seen as the “bad people '' after being blamed for mass destruction and public disturbance. Although, police got immense backlash from their actions, “The cops were beating up people in restaurants, and tourists, and the backlash in the report was so negative that I don’t think (the police) ever got violent with us (Yippies) again,” (Mackie 2021). This comes to prove that some progress had been achieved with somewhat lasting implications. Moving towards the present, specifically discussing the legalization of marijuana in October 2018. The following decades after this riot had implemented the legalization of