Delaware

Delaware Weed Olympics & 420 festival 2025: These weed events will smoke the competition

Published

9 months ago

April 19, 2025

Delaware Weed Olympics & 420 festival 2025: These weed events will smoke the competition

Two weed festivals expect to attract a couple thousand people at each of their puffed-up events in celebration of the 420 holiday in Delaware.

The two events are Spring Fling at Fire Base Lloyd in Townsend and the 420 Pregamin BlowChella at Hudson Fields in Milton. Both events are from April 19-20.

These 420 festivals are both for ages 21 or older, and guests are encouraged to bring their own weed. Both events will feature live music, vendors, food trucks and more.

Here’s a half-baked preview of some of the highlights from both cannabis fests.

What is 420 Spring Fling in Delaware?

The Delfire Group (hosts of the annual Weedstock festival in September), in collaboration with Delaware NORML, is celebrating 420 with Spring Fling, a party that will last 30 hours.

The event will include over a dozen musical acts like The Wag, Big Boy Brass and Gretchen Emery Band. In addition to vendors and food, there will also be workshops, arts and crafts.

Cynthia Ferguson, event manager for Delfire Group, said Weedstock and Spring Fling have been held at Fire Base Lloyd for several years and the vibes have been chill. Guests should expect the same this year.

“You’ll never get hassled here. People are very friendly. They’re very helpful,” Ferguson said.

What is 420 Blowchella in Delaware?

420 Pregamin BlowChella invites the cannabis community to hang out for a weekend of weed, munchies, canines, vendors, art exhibits and dancing, from April 19-20. While it technically starts at 10 a.m., the celebration will really get underway at 4:20 p.m. on April 19.

Guests will also compete in games from the Weed Olympics and Stoner Obstacle Course. But hours before the weed games, there will be a friendly meetup with bulldogs-themed Bullchella.

BlowChella is a collaboration with ChooseJoy (a Dover-based nonprofit that offers financial support to fire victims who lost their homes), cannabis advocate Phil Hardin of Delaware Loves Cannabis, and Taishawn Frisby (a community leader in Sussex County). Proceeds will benefit ChooseJoy.

What’s the Delaware Weed Olympics and Stoner Obstacle Course?

BlowChella is giving guests a chance to prove marijuana smokers aren’t lazy people through its Weed Olympics and Stoner Obstacle Course at 10 p.m. on April 19.

“Who don’t remember being a teenager and being like, ‘I roll a better joint than you. My blunts look better,’” Dawn said. “Well, now we can actually figure out who really does roll a better joint blindfolded.”

According to the BlowChella website, these games include events like:

The Blunt Roll & Dash: Roll a (fake) blunt while speed-walking a short track. You have to start over if you drop it.
Slo-Mo Smoker Sprint: The runner who runs with the slowest time wins.
Deep Diving: Take a massive bong rip and see who can hold it in the longest.
Munchie Mow Down: Race against the clock to see who can devour the most hot wings in one minute.

What is Bullchella in Delaware?

BlowChella actually begins with a bulldog meet-and-greet event called “Bullchella” from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on April 19. There will be a designated area where humans can smoke weed during Bullchella, said Theresa Dawn, founder of ChooseJoy.

Fans of bulldogs will have a chance to meet other bullies at Bullchella. Since this event is bulldog themed, guests are only allowed to bring bulldog breeds of any kind, Dawn said. She added that guests must bring dogs that are trained, leashed, and not on their estrus cycle.

Prizes and ribbons will be awarded to bullies in various categories.

What is 420?

April 20, or 4/20, marks the annual holiday to unofficially celebrate all things marijuana.

Marijuana is illegal under federal law in the U.S. But as some states, including Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, legalize or decriminalize it, Americans overwhelmingly favor the legalization of marijuana for medical and recreational use, according to a Pew Research Center survey.

Events like BlowChella and Spring Fling give Delawareans an opportunity to smoke the legal limit of weed in a festival setting.

“We are asking our guests to follow the rules,” Dawn said about BlowChella. “Bring your own bud, don’t bring more than you’re legally allowed to have on you. Follow the rules and let’s have fun.”

How much are tickets for Spring Fling 2025 and 420 BlowChella?

420 Pregamin BlowChella: Hudson Fields (30045 Eagle Crest Road, Milton) starts at 10 a.m. April 19-20. Tickets for General Admission Weekend Pass and Camping are $40 early or $50 at the gate. General Day Pass is $25 early or $30 at the door. For more info, visit 420pregamin.com.

Spring Fling 2025: Fire Base Lloyd (474 Fleming Landing Road, Townsend) at noon April 19. Tickets for general admission are $40. For more info, visit weedstock.org.

USA TODAY reporter Anna Kaufman contributed to this report.

If you have an interesting story idea, email lifestyle reporter Andre Lamar at alamar@gannett.com. Consider signing up for his weekly newsletter, DO Delaware, at delawareonline.com/newsletters.

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Delaware

MERR responds to dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach

Published

10 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Press Room

MERR responds to dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach

A dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach on Jan. 8, according to the nonprofit Marine Education Research and Rehabilitation Institute.

The juvenile male was first seen Jan. 6, floating at sea about 2 miles off the Indian River Inlet, a MERR Facebook post said. The bloated 30-foot whale ultimately beached near a private community in the early afternoon of Jan. 8, the post said.

MERR is attempting to coordinate with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control to get equipment to move the whale out of the water and onto the beach to perform a necropsy, the post said. Right now, there isn’t enough information to determine a cause of death.

Delaware saw at least three dead whales last year, in the Indian River Bay, at Delaware Seashore State Park and at Pigeon Point. The first two were humpbacks, while the Pigeon Point whale was a fin whale.

A necropsy on the Delaware Seashore whale found blunt force trauma across its back, indicating it may have been struck by a ship, MERR Director Suzanne Thurman said.

Recently, on Jan. 4, a dead fin whale was found on the bow of a ship at the Gloucester Marine Terminal in New Jersey, which is located in the Port of Philadelphia on the Delaware River.

Shannon Marvel McNaught reports on southern Delaware and beyond. Reach her at smcnaught@gannett.com or on Facebook.

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Delaware

Pa. man accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from Delco cemetery

Published

22 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

Pa. man accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from Delco cemetery

A Pennsylvania man is accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from a cemetery in Delaware County.

Jonathan Gerlach, 34, of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, is charged with abuse of corpse, criminal mischief, burglary and other related offenses, Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse revealed on Thursday, Jan. 8.

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Between November 2025 and Jan. 6, 2026, 26 mausoleums and underground burial sites had been burglarized or desecrated at Mount Moriah Cemetery, which stretches from Yeadon Borough, Pennsylvania, to Philadelphia, investigators said.

As police investigated the thefts, they caught Gerlach desecrating a monument at the cemetery on Tuesday, Jan. 6, according to officials. Gerlach was taken into custody and investigators executed a search warrant at his home in Ephrata.

During the search, investigators recovered 100 human skeletons from Gerlach’s home as well as eight more human remains inside a storage locker, according to Rouse.

“Detectives walked into a horror movie come to life the other night guys,” Rouse said. “This is an unbelievable scene that no one involved – from myself to the detectives to the medical examiners that are now trying to piece together what they are looking at, quite literally – none of them have ever seen anything like this before.”

Rouse said some of the stolen skeletons are hundreds of years old.

“We are trying to figure out exactly what we are looking at,” Rouse said. “We quite simply at this juncture are not able to date and identify all of them.”

Rouse also said some of the skeletons are of infants and children.

“It is truly, in the most literal sense of the word, horrific,” Rouse said. “I grieve for those who are upset by this who are going through it who are trying to figure out if it is in fact their loved one or their child because we found remains that we believe to be months old infants among those that he had collected. Our hearts go out to every family that is impacted by this.”

Sources also told NBC10 the thefts are related to a similar case in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Investigators said they are looking at Gerlach’s online community — including his social media groups and Facebook page — to determine if people were buying, selling, or trading the remains.

Gerlach is currently in custody at the Delaware County Prison after failing to post $1 million bail. Online court records don’t list an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

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