Earlier this year in one of our blogs, titled ‘Alberta Leads Nation in Marijuana Stores: Here’s how to Protect Your Shop From Thieves’, we covered research from Statistics Canada which found Alberta to be the leading province in Canada for both the number of cannabis stores and cannabis retail sales.

It was found that there were 75 legal retail cannabis stores in the province, which had sold a combined $33 million worth of legal marijuana since October 17, 2018 - when marijuana was first legalized.

Since then, the business has gotten even better for Alberta’s retail cannabis stores with new data from Statistics Canada (as published by Global News) discovering that $123.7 million was spent on legal marijuana in Alberta from October 2018 to June 2019 - the most spent in any province or territory across Canada.

Ontario came in second, with $121.6 million spent on legal cannabis. Quebec followed, with $119.2 million spent. Meanwhile, the Northwest Territories saw the least amount of money spent on legal cannabis at $1.47 million.

By going private, Alberta has the most cannabis stores in Canada. As of August 26, 2019, 277 licences have been issued for cannabis retailers in Alberta.

With cannabis retail stores becoming increasingly successful - it’s only a matter of time before they become a top target among criminals. Sonitrol Western Canada has listed four key ways you can ensure your cannabis retail store is safe from criminal activity.

1 - Implement a verified security solution

The assets you hold within your cannabis retail store are valuable, and protecting them is crucial for your profits. That’s why it’s essential your business implements a verified security solution.

Conventional alarms no longer do the job. They are far below the standard needed to protect your business and will result in high false alarm rates as well as significantly longer police response times.

A verified alarm will detect an intrusion and then verify it through a 24/7 monitoring centre, who will then notify the authorities. This means, unlike conventional CCTV alarms, verified alarms dramatically reduce the chance of a false alarm and are trusted by police forces in Alberta.

The result? Verified alarms have an average police dispatch time of around just 3-4 minutes. Your assets will be completely secure.

2 - Implement workplace policies and procedures in the event of a crime

Crime can happen at your business at any moment, that’s why your employees should always be the first aspect of the business you seek to protect. It’s important you create workplace policies and procedures which address what staff members should do if a crime occurs at your cannabis retail store.

This policy should include key things such as:

• Training on what to do in the event of a violent crime.
• Not allowing employees to work alone.
  Procedures for high-risk tasks such as counting the cash register or moving highly-valuable assets.

3 - Secure your assets with managed access control

Are you sick of looking after physical keys that, once lost, put your business at security risk? Managed access control, or keyless entry, will solve that concern while making your cannabis retail store significantly more secure from crime.

By using access cards, badges or fobs to unlock doors that use electric locks managed access control will completely remove the need for your business to use physical keys.

This means you’ll be able to restrict your most valuable rooms to authorized individuals, while also having the ability to track which employees are in which room at any given time. Not only does this secure your business is protected against external crime, but it also protects you against internal theft as well.

4 - Remove the security system left by the previous owner

If you have purchased and moved into new premises, then you should ensure that your cannabis retail store doesn’t use the security system left behind by the previous owner - whether it’s conventional CCTV or verified technology.

A security solution must be designed for the specific needs and layout of your business. If it’s not, then it’s highly possible that your security system isn’t protecting your high-valuable assets.

Want to learn more about how Sonitrol Western Canada’s innovative and world-class security technology can protect your cannabis retail store from the threat of theft? Contact our team of experts today.