Cannabis dispensary security — the robbery-prevention playbook beyond cameras

• **Continuous video surveillance** — every entrance, exit, point-of-sale, vault/storage area, and parking lot accessible by customers. 24/7 recording, 45-day minimum retention.
• **Commercial-grade alarm system** with intrusion detection on all perimeter doors + vault. Monitored centrally with police-dispatchable response.
• **Lockable storage** for product not on the floor (the vault). Restricted access — log every entry/exit.
• **Limited access policy** — only WSLCB-registered employees in restricted areas. Visitors logged + escorted.
• **Lighting** — exterior lighting on all sides of the building, parking lot, entrances. Dusk-to-dawn minimum.

1. 1**Deterrence (street-side).** Bright exterior lighting, clean glass, well-kept landscaping, visible cameras with red-light indicators (even decoys deter), prominent security-company decals. Dispensaries that look professional + monitored get cased less than ones that look chaotic. The casing-to-attempt window is typically 1-3 weeks; deterrence prevents the casing from converting.
2. 2**Access control (entry-side).** Buzzer-controlled vestibule OR ID-check at the door (per /guides/cannabis-edibles-customer-education-at-register, the front-of-house ID-verify station serves dual purpose — compliance + security choke point). Camera covers the door at ID-check height. Door auto-locks 15 min before close so late-walk-in robberies are impossible.
3. 3**Cash control (transactional).** No till has more than ~$500 cash at any time. Drops to safe every 2 hours. Multi-stage drop — budtender drops to lockable drop-box, manager moves drop-box contents to vault. Robbers who get the till get a small fraction of the day’s cash; vault stays untouched. Per /guides/cash-discipline-at-a-cannabis-dispensary, this is the variance-ladder discipline applied to robbery prevention.
4. 4**Vault discipline (back-of-house).** Restricted access — manager + GM only. Time-delay lock during open hours (90-second delay between unlock and door-open) so a robbery scenario can’t fast-access the vault under coercion. Dual-control — vault unlock requires two staff present. Daily physical inventory log of vault contents.
5. 5**Staff posture (everyone).** Train every staff member to recognize casing behavior + report it: customer asking about hours/cash/staffing/closing routines, person sitting in parking lot for extended periods, photos taken of entrances/cameras, repeated visits with no purchase. Casing observations get logged + reviewed weekly per /guides/cannabis-state-traceability-reconciliation-discipline cadence.
6. 6**Post-incident protocol (recovery).** When a robbery happens — and it might — every staff member knows: comply fully (no resistance), give them what they want, no heroics, every product is replaceable, employees are not. Memorize: clothing, height, weight, accent, vehicle make/color/plate, time of departure direction. Hit the silent alarm AFTER they leave, not during. Document everything within 30 minutes of departure while memory is fresh.

Most operators worry about robbery in terms of inventory loss. The data says otherwise: in a typical armed robbery of a cannabis dispensary, the average loss is ~$1,800-$3,500 in cash + ~$800-$1,500 in product. Total: $2,600-$5,000. Compare to: insurance deductible $5K-$10K, post-incident shutdown for police investigation 4-8 hours of lost revenue, employee turnover from trauma in the 60 days after = real cost ~$15K-$30K. **The cash you put on the floor IS the maximum loss you accept.** Disciplined cash drops cap that exposure.

• **Per-till cap: ~$500 cash.** Drops to safe at 2-hour intervals during open hours.
• **Drop-box → vault separation.** Drop-box is what staff can access during the shift. Vault contents only the manager-on-duty can move. Two-stage flow.
• **End-of-shift no-cash-on-floor protocol.** Every till closes to zero cash. Bank-deposit cash goes to vault. Float-back cash for next shift goes to vault. Floor is empty by 30 min after close.
• **Loomis schedule day-of-rush.** Per /guides/cannabis-holiday-rush-operations, the Friday-not-Saturday Loomis trick keeps cash from sitting through high-target weekends.
• **No bank deposit alone, no after-dark deposits.** Two staff for every deposit run; daylight only. Robbers know dispensaries do daily deposits + plan around them.

If a robbery happens, the priority is everyone walks out unharmed. Not the cash, not the product, not the security cameras. Train this hard:

1. 1**Comply fully.** Hand over what they ask for. No resistance, no negotiation, no ‘I have to call my manager’ stalling. Every product is replaceable; lives are not.
2. 2**Hands visible, no sudden movements.** Robbers are operating on adrenaline + fear; surprises trigger reactions. Slow + announced movements only.
3. 3**Don’t make eye contact.** Reduces escalation. Look at hands + clothing details for the post-incident description, not at faces.
4. 4**Memorize what’s memorizable in the moment.** Approximate height (against a doorframe), approximate weight, distinguishing features (tattoos, scars, accent, gait), clothing details, weapon type if visible, vehicle if you see it leaving.
5. 5**Silent alarm AFTER they leave.** Silent alarm during a robbery in progress = police arrive while robbers are in the store = hostage scenario. Hit the alarm 30-60 seconds after departure, not during.
6. 6**Lock the door behind them.** Prevents return. Even if you’re shaking, do this within 15 seconds of departure.
7. 7**Call 911 once locked + safe.** Give the dispatcher: location, what happened, descriptions, weapon-yes-no, direction of travel, vehicle.
8. 8**Document immediately.** Within 30 minutes while memory is fresh: each staff writes their own account separately (don’t share notes — separate accounts catch more details). Per /guides/manager-writeups-that-survive-review, the post-incident write-up format is the legal record + the insurance-claim record.
9. 9**Trauma resources Day 1.** Cover EAP visits or therapy for any staff present. The 60-day post-incident retention rate without resources is brutal; with it is normal. Investment: ~$1K-$2K per affected employee. Cost of replacing trauma-driven turnover: $5K-$10K per employee per memory `project_replacement_hire_cost`.

• **Cash-drop cron + per-till cap surface** — /admin/till-sessions surfaces real-time per-till cash + flags anything over $500 with a Manager-on-Duty SMS prompt to drop. Drop-box-to-vault transfers logged with manager-PIN + timestamp.
• **Casing-observation log** — staff-side button at /pos/checkout to log a suspicious-behavior observation (drop-down: customer-asked-about-cash / extended-parking-lot-presence / camera-photography / repeat-no-purchase / other-with-text-field). Manager reviews weekly. Pattern recognition surfaces if 3+ observations describe the same individual or vehicle.
• **Time-delay-lock vault config** — /admin/vault settings store per-vault time-delay-lock duration. Time-of-day rules: vault has standard delay during open hours, no delay 30 min before close, locked-out 30 min after close.
• **Post-incident protocol page** — /admin/operations/post-incident renders the 9-step staff-side checklist as a printable wallet-card (every staff carries; refreshed annually). On incident, manager opens this page for the running checklist + the per-staff write-up form.
• **Robbery-history audit log** — every incident logged with category=‘robbery’ + the dual-witness write-ups + the post-incident review notes. Insurance-claim packet auto-generates from the audit log + the surveillance-video-pull request to insurance carriers.