Sometimes Vancouver becomes a parody of itself. This week, for example, two of the biggest stories involved pot and yoga.

The chambers at City Hall were jammed with people, many wanting to register their objections to Mayor Gregor Robertson's plans to crack down on the plethora of medical pot shops sprouting up around town. Some fear the mayor's attempt to regulate the industry will end up killing a number of stores, forcing people to walk farther to get their favourite hash brownies.

But the buzz over grass paled in comparison to the hysteria over yoga.

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It all started when Premier Christy Clark announced that the downtown Burrard Street Bridge would be closed for a few early-morning hours on Sunday, June 21, so it could be used as a giant yoga mat. The event is part of worldwide celebrations connected to International Day of Yoga. It didn't take long for the publicity stunt to transform itself into a full-blown political imbroglio, one that would incite a Twitter feud between the children's singer Raffi Cavoukian and the Premier's ex-husband Mark Marissen. More on that in a second.

Some journalistic sleuthing determined that the event was going to cost taxpayers a whopping $150,000. The morning tabloid ended up having a field day with it, which, in turn, helped generate social media outrage, which, in turn, prompted politicians at City Hall to distance themselves from the entire affair. It was all the Premier's idea, they said. Naturally, this impelled the Premier's opponents to step up their attack, suggesting the many different ways in which the money could have been better used: schools, health care, end world poverty.

My take? Sure, the Premier could have saved herself some political heartache if she had urged Lululemon or some other business that might benefit from the publicity generated by the event to pony up the cash.

But in the grand scheme of things, yoga on the bridge is a national/international, marketing/branding exercise. If you consider the provincial government's overall tourism budget is $90-million, it's a fairly minuscule amount. Conclusion: mountain meets mole hill.

Enter Raffi Cavoukian, the singer-songwriter who bolted to worldwide acclaim many years ago with his smash hit Baby Beluga. (In his heyday, Raffi was the Justin Bieber of the toddler set). One of the Premier's harshest critics on social media, Mr. Cavoukian was not going to pass up an opportunity to grind Ms. Clark over her so-called twisted priorities. He started tweeting his objections under the hashtag #shunthebridge. This prompted Mr. Marissen to jump to his ex-wife's defence.

"Sorry to see Raffi become a bitter old man," Mr. Marissen tweeted at one point. He later accused the singer of being a "hard-core ideologue" who uses his "reputation earned as a children's singer to bully others."

Unable to see this story die a natural death, Ms. Clark helped inflame the situation with a provocative post of her own. Pictured outside a tai chi outlet on Vancouver Island, the Premier tweeted: "Hey Yoga Haters – bet you can't wait for international tai chi day."

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At first many people thought that either the Premier's account had been hacked or a drunken assistant had gotten his hands on her BlackBerry. As it turned out it was neither: Ms. Clark would confirm at a news conference later in the day that it was indeed her account and she was taking full responsibility for the tweet, defending it as an attempt at self-deprecating humour.

Naturally, the tweet incited more outrage, with people calling on the Premier to issue a full apology for the remark. But soon people's attention was diverted yet again, as First Nations groups announced they were going to crash Ms. Clark's yoga party to protest the fact it coincided with National Aboriginal Day. Organizers promised it would be a peaceful disruption involving signs, singing and drumming.

There was no word if those upset about the mayor's plans to crack down on pot dispensaries in the city had plans to also show up and stage a smoke-in. If the yoga-on-the-bridge thing had gone ahead, it would have been a truly iconic West Coast event.

But Om the Bridge was cancelled after the controversy prompted the proponents to pull out, and Ms. Clark lamented the spirit of the event had "drifted towards politics."

And Vancouver wonders why people have trouble taking the city seriously sometimes.