Why Marymoor Park’s concert rules are ridiculous and will be broken

The Marymoor Park Concert Series in Redmond is about to get underway and they have a ton of phenomenal acts coming: Walk the Moon, Wilco, Matt and Kim, and Peter Framptom, to name a few.

I always get a bit mad because I want to go to half the concerts, but I can’t because my normal show is on weeknights from 7-10 p.m. when these concerts take place.

But a policy in place at these Marymoor Park shows has other concertgoers a bit frustrated in another way.

Despite the legalization of marijuana in the state of Washington, you can’t smoke at Marymoor Park. There are signs all over the place that read: “Washington State Law prohibits the use of cannabis in public and specifically on any alcohol licensed premises. Washington State Law also specifically requires that anyone who uses cannabis on an alcohol licensed premise be removed from that premise immediately and without warning. Please consider this your warning. If you use cannabis on this premise, you will be asked to leave immediately and will not receive a refund.”

“If you use cannabis on the premises, you will be asked to leave immediately and will not receive a refund,” one concertgoer complained to KING 5.

“It surprised me a little bit because I am from a state where it’s completely banned and everyone talks about how lenient the laws are here,” another concertgoer said.

So people are confused and wondering why you can’t smoke weed at a concert.

Now the truth is, these signs won’t do anything.

People will always smoke weed at concerts. Rather than do it in the open, they’ll do it like they always do which is in a big crowd. They squat down, pull out a joint, take a few puffs, pass it around, and then put it out and stash it. They can do this in a matter of seconds before security even gets wind of it. And the truth is, I’ve seen concert security just look the other way at people smoking weed.

I think this is a silly rule now that marijuana is legal. The park should create a section for pot smoking, like you do with a smoking section or a beer garden. Have a weed garden.

The biggest problem now is if you don’t want to smell weed, you’re pretty much forced to because they’re getting high in the middle of the concert. If you put them in the back or off to the side, you mitigate the amount of weed stench bothering people who dislike the smell. That seems like a win-win, rather than pretending it’s not happening or that you’re going to enforce the rules.