Happy 4/20 to All Who Celebrate (in North Loop, of course)
Yes, yes, yes: High Culture: operas, recitals, orchestras, tutus, white ties. Reverential silence.
Yeah, yeah, yeah: Popular Culture: jazz, rap, rock, tagging, improv-ing, breaking, folk, spirituals, musicals: Joyful whooping and call-outs.
Yay, yay, yay: Cannabis Culture: peaceful grins, serious munchies, thumb-your-nose rebelry and revelry: Contagious giggles and cosmic awestruck silences. In recent years, add connoisseurship, wellness and healing applications, and big-stakes entrepreneur-ing.
Which bring us to April 20–4/20. It is the global pro-pot day, both in celebration and call to action, arising from a 4:20 PM meet-up in 1971 of a quintet of San Rafael, California high schoolers in quest of a secret but abandoned pot planting. Later—after nailing a supply one way or another—4:20 became their break-in-the-day time to toke.
By 1991, both “4:20” and “4/20” were so mainstreamed the terms were debuted in cannabis magazine High Times. No road sign or milemarker has been safe since. The “Mile 420” sign on I-90 east of Denver was relocated 52.80 feet, and now reads “Mile 419.99”. The street sign for 420th Street in Goodhue County, Minnesota, is now “42x Street.”
Goodhue County’s 420th Street sign became 42X Street to prevent the sign from being stolen every year on April 20.
4/20 in North Loop
Seeing as the North Loop is already a hotbed of forward-thinking, entertainment-loving, mind-and-body-buffing residents and visitors, two cannabis emporia got whiff of the, uh, heady opportunity and settled right in: sweetleaves (905 Washington Ave. N.) and Wildflower (212 N. 2nd St.) bookend us with style, expertise, and cannabis-cool options. Sweetleaves was recently voted Best Cannabis Store in the 2026 Mpls-St. Paul Magazine’s Readers Poll; the issue started arriving in subscribers’ mailboxes this week.
Sweetleaves won Gold in the Mpls-St. Paul Magazine’s 2026 Readers Poll for Best Cannabis Store.
We also have Lagom Naturals (707 N. 3rd St., Suite 101) selling cannabis products like beverages and edibles that are derived from hemp, but Wildflower and sweetleaves are the two selling the actual marijuana plant, or “flower” as they say in the industry.
The attention to 4/20 sparks interest in cannabis products, said David Hoffman, co-founder of sweetleaves. “We’re getting people who are curious about the plant and what comes along with it. We also get a lot of people who are familiar. They’re coming in, they consume daily and want to be a part of something special.”
Sweetleaves owners David Hoffman and Adam Hoffman at their North Loop location on Washington Ave N.
Being the new kid on the block—OK, to Minnesota at large—I asked Wildflower GM Erin Kaine, “Where’s the big 4/20 celebration going to be?” She paused to ponder. “There isn’t a specific 420 festival that I know of.” And then she pivoted with a full-wattage smile while gesturing storewide. “We’re recommending that everyone DIY the day.” Adroit and on-brand, but of course: This IS the North Loop, after all.
North Loop Wildflower General Manager Erin Kaine.
To make your 420 DIY shopping as tempting as possible, check out the options from Wildflower here and sweetleaves here. Sweetleaves is also leaning in on those munchies: Look for Parlour’s food truck right outside their store on Friday, April 17 from 4 to 8pm. And could their ticket giveaway promo for Chelsea Handler’s “High and Mighty” tour be more on target?
“You’re celebrating something that’s taken so long to become legalized and normalized, and really just celebrating the plant, and everything that goes along with the cannabis community, and for us being in North Loop,” said Hoffman.
— By Louis Raymond, NLNA Board Member and Volunteer Culture Correspondent