The organizers of the official Hippie Hill 4/20 event have canceled this year’s smoke-filled festivities over budget cuts and lack of sponsorship. But considering 4/20 falls on a Saturday this year, mobs of stoners are probably going to show up anyway.

Last year’s 4/20 at Hippie Hill celebration seemed to show the event maturing from its early outlaw days of fistfights and trash, into a legitimate music festival that drew an estimated 20,000 people. And this year, with 4/20 (April 20) again falling on a Saturday, one would expect those attendance numbers to be even higher.

But bummer, duuuude… SFGate was early to report that the official Hippie Hill 4/20 event has been canceled for 2024, according to a Monday announcement on the organizers’ website.

“Unfortunately, the 420 Hippie Hill event in Golden Gate Park will not be happening as planned this year—due to city wide budget cutbacks, the climate of the cannabis industry & economy we have been unable to secure enough financial sponsorship to get everything required for a safe, clean, city & state compliant event,” the announcement says. “We will be back next year! Until then, please join us at Carnaval SF May 25-26,2024.”

Sure, that teases that there may be legal cannabis sales at Carnaval again this year (and that the official 4/20 event may return next year). But it’s a huge disappointment for the local pot-smoking community that the organized 4/20 event in Golden Gate Park has been smoked out for 2024.

Of course, with 4/20 falling on a Saturday, thousands of people are surely going to show up anyway, just as they did in the event’s early years before it became a sanctioned and permitted thing in 2017. And legal on-site cannabis sales were introduced in 2022. This year’s official “cancellation” will probably equate to a financial windfall for the illegal, street-level pot dealers who descend upon the park.

The cancellation of this year’s official 4/20 celebration is surely welcome news to Mayor London Breed, because she absolutely hates 4/20. But the event being unregulated opens up a Pandora’s hot-box of problems this event used to have before it was permitted.

In recent years, the cleanup effort has been remarkable, as opposed to the 20,000 pounds of trash left behind in 2016. A lack of security may also lead to rampant alcohol vending again, which characterized the pre-permitted era, and god knows what else those inevitable vendors will be selling.

So the “official” 4/20 being canceled may simply lead to the same attendance of 20,000 or more; but with a lot more waste, and a lot more wasted people.

Update: SF Rec and Parks just acknowledged that the official 4/20 event is not happening, and instead says that they’ll be holding “volleyball & kickball tournaments” in hopes of keeping the pot-smoking riff-raff out of the park. Yeah, good luck with that!

Related: Watch: 4/20 Blankets Hippie Hill With Pot Smoke, Erykah Badu Exhorts Crowd To Smoke Even More [SFist]

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist