Following weeks of arrests by undercover drug squad members in Vancouver as part of a special police operation directed by City hall, police broke up a protest smoke-in in the Gastown neighbourhood.
The smoke-in was organized by the Youth International Party (Vancouver Yippies)[1] against the use of undercover agents and in favour of the legalization of marijuana.
[2] Police were accused of heavy-handed tactics including indiscriminate beatings with their newly-issued riot batons.
[3][4][5] A commission of inquiry into the incident was headed by Supreme Court Justice Thomas Dohm.
[6][7] The Gastown riots are commemorated in a two-story-high 2009 photo mural called Abbott & Cordova, August 7, 1971 by local artist Stan Douglas, installed in the atrium of the redeveloped Woodward's complex in the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood.