For the second year in a row, police in Albuquerque closed down a public park to the entire public rather than allow entrance to a small crowd of people gathered to smoke marijuana. The occasion was April 20, considered a national holiday among some groups of marijuana users around the world.

Police said the extra security was necessary because up to 400 people had turned out in Roosevelt Park during past commemorations of April 20.

Two officers on a hilltop surveyed Roosevelt Park with binoculars as five horse-mounted police patrolled its boundaries. Patrol cars lined the park's east and west borders and a mobile command van was parked nearby. Streets were blocked with orange cones.

Students from the nearby University of New Mexico questioned whether police resources could be better spent fighting more serious crimes. Meanwhile, neighborhood residents complained about the park being kept off-limits.

"I'd like to cross the street and have lunch under the trees. If they want to prevent people from smoking pot, they can have a police presence. But this is ridiculous," Cora Kammer told the Albuquerque Tribune. Kammer lives across the street from the park.