What risks do you see with dispensaries whether privately owned or publicly owned and operated? This could of course even include the old Hollywood script where the bad guys knock through the common wall of an adjacent business …. And how can your company help dispensary owners and operators?
We deliver the full gamut of services. We provide security consulting services to clients in the licensing and design stages of a project, licenced producers and retail outlets. We also provide physical seed-to-sale security at every stage in the supply chain.
At least one armed robbery has been reported every few months at a dispensary or retail outlet in Canada. Some of these have been violent, and those are only the ones we know about.
As more stores open, we can expect to see more robberies and the potential for violence. You have a high-value product, a significant amount of cash on the premises and employees who likely do not have even minimal training in how to deal with a dangerous situation. For many dispensaries and retail outlets, security is an after-thought, if it has been thought of at all.
It’s not a Hollywood movie script. The risks involved are real and I believe that there will be more regulations and pressure from the community and within the industry to deal with them.
You also provide physical security including armoured vehicle-transportation of cannabis. What would you say to the potential client who believes it is best to diversify their security (perhaps one company for transportation, another for risk audits, etc).
I believe independent risk audits can be a good thing.
That said, this is a new industry and there are not many companies with the experience and expertise that we have developed both in consulting and delivering security services.
While it may sound self-serving, I think that in these early stages of the industry, it’s more important to rely on a company like 3 Sixty that has specialized in the industry and that can draw on experience consulting with more than 550 clients and providing physical security to more than 60 including some of the largest companies in the business.
As the industry matures, that may change, but we are agile, and therefore grow with the emerging industry to support the respective needs as we move forward.
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