With an uptick in thefts hitting cannabis businesses across the nation, a primary cannabis advocacy coalition is providing the cannabis industry with guidance on how to discourage and answer to cannabis theft in dispensaries.
Americans for Safe Access, a known group here on the Stickyleaf Blog, created its Robbery Preparedness Handbook in reaction to increasing reports of targeted offenses at cannabis vendors. In San Francisco, there are accounts of more than 30 break-ins and a couple of millions of dollars in damages and stolen cannabis technology in the past sixty days.
“We know this is a problem all across the country, and we want to do what we can to assist and ensure that all cannabis dispensaries remain safe, their employees and consumers feel SAFE, and that cannabis commodities continue to be available to consumers,” ASA expressed.
The company complimentary guide is designed to “help cannabis businesses in making plans to stay secure during larcenies and embrace guidelines to help prevent thefts and potential violence.”
“No one wants to think about thefts and harm, but they are a real problem for all businesses, especially in retail. Even if dispensary staff is not discussing robberies, they are pondering about them,” the guide reveals. “Most threats are calculated and rely on an element of surprise and conflict. This means that thieves are looking for flaws in a business’ security that would make the procedure an attractive target.”
ASA acknowledged that cannabis companies are already more helpless to being marks of crime because numerous cannabis companies operate on a predominantly cash-only foundation due to the lack of access to traditional company banking and additional financial services.
The uptick in cannabis robberies has also been noted by legislators who’ve been advocating for the enactment of legislation to shield banks that partner with state-sanctioned cannabis companies. They’ve debated that the public safety concerns formed by the present system underline the critical need to enforce the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act. Despite this and passing in the House of Representatives in some style nearly five times now, the cannabis banking reform has been intercepted in the Senate beneath Republican and Democratic control, albeit for distinct reasons.
“It is a known fact that cannabis companies have problems with conventional banks, which already makes them marks, but thieves also search for easy getaway possibility, employees working independently, and companies that are isolated,” the guide continues on to state. “Thefts happen swiftly, so it is critical that all employees know what is anticipated from them during and after an occasion.”
The information included in the guide from ASA is split into five distinct categories: preparation, amid a robbery, post-theft, in case of theft and additional considerations on ensuring adequate security.
It urges cannabis businesses to ensure measures like creating transparent policies on locking up the establishment, handling and storing commodities, including observable security cams, establishing security alarm systems, continually altering the time of day that money is repositioned from the cannabis business, collaborating with crooks to get them to leave as quickly as possible and getting in touch with law enforcement after an episode.
In response to the uptick in retail cannabis theft, constituents of the cannabis business congregation in Oakland, California last month contacted state and local officials in an effort to provide “tax clemency.” The group Supernova Women, which catalyzed the event, expressed the rax relief would help maintain small and minority-owned enterprises that have encountered up to $5 million in losses due to robberies.
ASA also recently distributed educational guidance to thousands of California hospitals on how to install a new law requiring them to allow certain patients to use cannabis at their hospitals and clinic.