Cannabis & Dispensary Security · Arizona
Armed and unarmed officers — grow room to retail floor.
Physical security for licensed cannabis operations across Arizona — cultivation and manufacturing sites and the dispensaries that sell, from the grow to the counter to the transport in between.
Armed and unarmed officers for cannabis sites
Coverage built for cannabis sites. It is a different job from ordinary retail — cash and product are both on site, and everyone knows it.
The door and the queue
Presence at entry, ID and age verification support to your written policy, and control of the lobby at open and at close — the two windows in the day when a site is most exposed and least staffed.
The floor
An officer positioned where they can see the counter, the queue and the door at once. Visible where deterrence is the point, discreet where the room calls for it. De-escalation first, every time.
Back of house
Support at the restricted-area line — working alongside your authorized staff, so restricted access stays with your own people.
Close of day
The walk, the lock, the escort to the vehicle, the parking lot. Close is when the cash is consolidated and the staff are tired, and it is the moment most robbery evidence points at.
Cash movement
Escort and standoff when value moves — between safe and counter, between site and vehicle, between sites. Treated as its own plan with its own procedure.
Loitering and the perimeter
The car park, the back door, the alley. Loitering is a constant at cannabis sites, and a visible officer keeps it managed before it turns into a problem.
Armed
Where the assessment justifies it
Armed coverage is matched to the threat picture at your site — never sold as a default upgrade. On a busy retail floor, uniformed presence is often the right call, and we will tell you so. Where the risk calls for armed officers, we assign them.
Unarmed
Presence, procedure and a written record
Unarmed coverage means steady presence, observation and de-escalation, backed by clear documentation — consistent posts, defined patrol routes and a written report after every shift.
Trained for the environment. Our officers are trained in observation, de-escalation and calm, documented response — and they understand how a cannabis site runs, day to day.
Site-ready officers. Officers assigned to your site come prepared for the cannabis environment and the requirements that come with it — handled before they start, not after.
What we do
Six workstreams, all of them physical security — officers, procedure and the paperwork that surrounds them.
Access control, cameras and alarms are handled by our partner agency. In Arizona we work alongside a vetted partner who designs, installs and maintains the equipment side — access control, camera systems and alarms. We stay on the physical security: the officers, the posture, the procedure and the record. You get one conversation and two specialisms, and neither of us is marking up the other's work.
Site security assessment
A physical walk of the premises with an officer's eye rather than an inspector's. Where would someone actually come in, where is the exposure at close, and what does the posture need to be — before anyone quotes you a headcount.
What we look at
- Approach and sightlines — how the site is watched from outside, and from where
- The entry sequence: queue geometry, the lobby, and where an officer has to stand to see the counter, the queue and the door at once
- The restricted-area line, and how access is actually controlled in practice rather than on paper
- Back door, delivery point, alley and car park — the approaches nobody watches
- Lighting as a security matter: the dark stretch between the door and the vehicle, not a box to tick
- Close-of-day sequence — the walk, the lock, the cash consolidation and the staff exit
- Cash movement on and off site, and where it is exposed
- Loitering patterns, and what your people are currently expected to do about them
- Post orders: whether they exist, and whether every officer on the rotation performs the same job the same way
You receive
- A findings list split into what needs an officer, what needs a procedure, and what needs equipment
- A recommended posture — posts, hours, armed or unarmed — with the reasoning
- Draft post orders for the coverage recommended
- A close-of-day and cash-movement procedure
Where the gap is equipment — access control, cameras, alarms — our partner agency picks it up from there. We stay on the officers, the posture and the procedure.
Retail and dispensary posts
Officers on the floor, at the door, or in the back of house. Armed or unarmed is decided from the assessment of your site — not sold as a default upgrade.
- Entry and ID verification support, to your written policy
- Queue and lobby presence during peak trade and at open and close
- Back-of-house and restricted-area access support, working alongside — not instead of — your authorized agents
- Close-of-day procedure: the walk, the lock, the escort to the vehicle, the parking lot
- Loitering management around the entrance, car park and perimeter
- De-escalation first, with a clear response procedure and a written report every time
- Alarm and panic response protocol tested with the responding agency rather than assumed
How our officers work
- Trained in observation, de-escalation and calm, documented response
- Clear post orders, so every officer on the rotation works the same way
- Response coordinated with your team and local responders
Every removal handled calmly, and documented every time.
Cultivation and manufacturing sites
A different problem from retail. The exposure is perimeter, volume and internal diversion rather than a counter and a queue.
- Perimeter coverage for outdoor grows, and secured-room coverage indoors
- Standing or patrol coverage across a large footprint, with aerial patrol where the ground is too large to walk — thermal at night, geofenced to the property
- Access control for staff, contractors and deliveries into restricted areas
- Post orders in writing, so every officer on the rotation performs the same job the same way
- Harvest and transfer-window coverage, which is when the concentration of product and people is highest
- Contractor and vendor screening — the most under-screened population and the one most often behind an internal loss
Inventory is a security control
- Support for daily inventory tracking — harvests, transfers, sales, disposals and ending counts
- Regular documented audits and reconciliation
- Unexplained discrepancies investigated and documented
- A clear trail from the floor to the record
A theft is a security matter and an inventory matter at once — we help you handle both.
Transport escort and route security
When product moves, your own facility agent carries it and our officers run the escort — route security and standoff at both ends. Cash movements get the same treatment.
What the escort is
- Your agent carries the product. Our officers provide escort, route security and standoff at both ends.
- Route planning with a primary and an alternate, driven and timed at the hour the movement actually happens
- Advance of the receiving location, and standoff during loading and unloading — the exposed moments, not the highway
- Cash movement treated as its own risk with its own plan, because it usually is
How the escort works
Clear roles. Your agent carries the product; our officers secure the route and both ends, and every trip is documented.
Diversion, internal loss and investigations
The investigations side of the business, applied to the loss that does not come through the front door. Most product loss at a cannabis site is internal, and it shows up as an inventory discrepancy long before it shows up on camera.
- Internal theft and diversion investigations, run so the evidence holds up later
- Digital forensics on point-of-sale, seed-to-sale and inventory systems where records have been altered
- Covert and overt surveillance, worked to the same lawful constraints as every other file we run
- Pre-employment and vendor background screening, handled properly
- Investigating and documenting unexplained inventory discrepancies
- Interview support and statements taken so they hold up later
Before you confront anyone
- Preserve the records and the devices first
- Do not reassign the account or reissue the machine
- A well-meant conversation on day one is the most common way an internal case loses its evidence — and converts a defensible termination into a claim
Incident documentation that satisfies three audiences
When something happens at a cannabis site, several parties need a record — and each one wants something different from it. We produce it once, cleanly.
- Local law enforcement — a report they can act on, with the footage produced in a usable form rather than as a phone photograph of a monitor
- Your own records — the incident captured and filed for your files
- Inventory reconciliation — any discrepancy investigated and tied to the same incident record
- A single source of truth — one record everyone can rely on
- Footage exported with the metadata intact, hashed and logged, so it is an exhibit rather than a clip
- A written incident record produced the same day, not reconstructed the following week
Why this is one service
- The same event triggers all four obligations
- Handled separately, the accounts diverge — and divergent records become their own problem
- One record, produced once, distributed four ways
Frequently asked questions
Whether you post officers should come down to the risk at your site. We assess it honestly and recommend only the coverage your site actually needs — and we will tell you if we think it needs less.
Your own facility agent carries the product, and our officers provide the escort — route security and standoff at both ends. Clear roles, a secured route, and documentation every trip.
Yes, where the assessment calls for it. On many retail floors, uniformed unarmed presence is the better fit — and we will tell you when that is the case.
We do not sell hardware ourselves. Access control, cameras and alarm systems at Arizona sites are delivered by our partner agency — a firm we work alongside and vouch for, handling design, installation and the equipment side. We stay on the physical security: the officers, the posture and the procedure. One conversation, two specialisms, and neither of us marking up the other.
Start with the site assessment
A physical walk of your site with a security eye — where the exposure is, what coverage fits, and a clear plan for posts, hours and procedure. If the honest answer is that you need less than you expected, that is what we will tell you.