In this eye-opening episode of KayaCast, we delve into the critical world of security in the cannabis industry with the expert guidance of Aaron Burn, a seasoned professional and founder of Bri-Bet Security Solutions. Aaron brings a wealth of knowledge and firsthand experience in safeguarding cannabis businesses against the sophisticated threats they face daily.
From overlooked vulnerabilities in initial security planning to the dramatic tales of midnight break-ins and high-stakes robberies, Aaron discusses the common mistakes made by new businesses and shares why integrating advanced security measures from the start is not just beneficial but essential.
Discover key strategies on:
- Effective perimeter security including camera placement and lighting
- The significant risks of improper ATM placement
- Essential practices for panic button usage and staff training
- The benefits of employing both undercover and uniformed security personnel
- Tips on selecting the right security firm that aligns with your business values and needs
Additionally, Aaron provides invaluable advice on internal threat management, the importance of armed security in cash-heavy environments, and how to effectively manage security costs without compromising safety.
Whether you’re a new dispensary owner drafting your first security plan or a seasoned operator looking to enhance your current measures, this episode is packed with actionable insights that could spell the difference between a secure business and a vulnerable one. Tune in to fortify your defenses and keep your cannabis business safe and thriving.
Join us on Kaya Cast, where each week, we empower you with the knowledge to grow and protect your cannabis enterprise.Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts. Find out more about Bri-Bet Security Solutions at:
https://bri-bet.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bri-bet-security-solutions/
#cannabisindustry #security #businessgrowth #businesstips #cannacommunity #kayacast #podcast
Tommy: Have you ever wondered if you're doing enough to keep your store secured? Aaron from Bri-Bet joins us today to talk about how to keep your store secured from potential criminals, as well as the top things that you should consider around security.
Intro: Welcome to the KayaCast, the podcast for cannabis businesses looking to launch, grow, and scale their operations. Each week, we bring you interviews with industry experts and successful retailers, plus practical tips and strategies to help you succeed in the fast growing cannabis industry.
Tommy: You guys have such an extensive experience helping the cannabis industry with security. What are some of the mistakes that you see cannabis businesses do when starting up their security plan?
Aaron Burn: Starting up their security plan, well, first of all, a lot of cannabis businesses here in Maryland, they don't involve security that early in their business plan. I see that a lot. So you'll see new entrepreneurs coming into Maryland and they're trying to balance their budget. They're trying to figure out what to spend money on. and it's tough, you know, when you're just starting out because everyone says you take your budget and whatever numbers you put in there, you just have to double it. And when you get to that stage, you have to start trying to cut expenses because it's so hard to get funding for cannabis businesses. So what I wind up noticing is security, oftentimes at that beginning stage, is We'll just say it's not represented as well as it should be for some of these businesses starting up and that can have a lot of issues down the line, you see it, and oftentimes you wind up paying for it, so like for example, I went into a cannabis business that had been operational for a couple of months, and they just wanted to do some consulting, I went in there and I noticed that their exit door had a clear path to to, uh, like their vault area where they kept their cannabis and they didn't have any panic buttons and the security was lax in that area.
And I was like, you guys, know, you got to make sure that this is a very, very secure area. There should be panic buttons. There should be, you make sure you have great camera coverage there because it is so dangerous. And you know, if some, if a criminal were to try to enter, they'd enter through that back door if they could. So definitely not involving cannabis or not involving cannabis security early in the build out process Something else I see You know, it's not happening as much now, but the ATMs like by doors and windows and entrances and things like that. People are trying to steal those ATMs these days, man. Yeah, it's crazy stuff. I mean, it's like they'll drive trucks up and just yank them out, pull the ATMs out. the ATM, uh, companies have been recently putting less cash in, you know, just so that the, the desire for stealing them should go down. But you know, some of these, some of the criminals, they don't know. They just, they see an ATM that they think is an easy grab and they go for it. Yeah. And then, not only is your ATM hosed up, but your window or door was pulled off and you gotta go through, you know, a new build out. It's, it can be a pain. Truly.
Tommy: I would have never thought that that would be a thing.
Aaron Burn: yeah. And it, well, it's not just cannabis businesses. It happens, I mean, all the time they're stealing these ATMs. But, can't, because cannabis is such a cash heavy business, and because ATMs are utilized so frequently, You gotta try to put them back, you know, make sure they're in a safe spot for sure. another thing that I see that's a mistake is, least in Maryland, I'm not sure about other states, but in Maryland you don't have to physical security. So like boots on the ground guys, that's like what we do. So for a lot of businesses here in Maryland, we're kind of like optional. It's one of those things where it's like, uh, you know, do I really want to put out the cash for this?
I don't know. But what you realize is the businesses that have a good security presence, and when I say a good security presence, I mean, you can't have sloppy guys in there. Nobody likes sloppy security, you know, in your business. But if you have like stand up people in there, stand up security guards, wind up making the customers feel safe, the staff feel safe, and criminals are like, oh, maybe not this one. You tend to overlook it, you know.
Tommy: If I was operating a dispensary, what are some of the good tenets of perimeter security?
Aaron Burn: Good tenants of perimeter security. That's a great question. I'd say for sure, make sure you have 360 degrees of camera coverage around your building. And make sure you have good lighting. So having a great camera setup and good lighting, these two things are like non negotiable in my opinion. if you're going, if you're Your cannabis business is going to be hit.
It's probably going to be at night, most likely. They'll try to break in late at night having good camera coverage, especially if they're, if you're connected to like a forest or if you're, your facility is kind of tucked away in the corner, making sure that you can see all 360 degrees around and there's great lighting that scares criminals, man.
They do not like good lighting and good camera coverage at all. Not at all, uh, make sure if you have a business, like let's say you have a dispensary and a shopping center, make sure if you share an adjacent wall, like with another business, especially if it's a business that's vacant, like a, like an empty business, sure you have good coverage there and make sure your security inside, especially around that area, is, you know, Well, well protected and on point because often than not, I've seen people literally cut through adjacent walls to get into dispensaries. that's, I mean, I literally, I see that like maybe two out of three, two out of three they're cutting through an adjacent wall to get in your business. Cause they think they can bypass, Uh, the security and, and truthfully, normally the perimeter security is on point. The, the, the interior security systems and alarms are always on point as well, but criminals oftentimes worry about that perimeter security. And if they see camera and lighting, they, that's really good. They try to go for that, um, that adjacent wall with a vacant business.
Tommy: How often do you see criminals cut off power? Is that a thing?
Aaron Burn: Yeah, I've seen it. I've seen it done. This happened where some of these guys, they were dressed like maintenance workers. And so if you have good camera coverage, like I said, oftentimes you'll have someone who on the alarm response, you know, like a business owner or a head of security or something, and they'll be checking the cameras. If, if there's any type of alarm goes off, you know, the police can be notified. The management can be notified. Anybody can be notified. And what winds up happening is if you, if an alarm goes off and you check the cameras and you're like, Oh, it just looks like maintenance guys. Maybe try to stop the police from coming out.
Cause you're thinking, you know, Oh, you know, it's somebody just actually messed up the alarm, you know, just forget it, let it go. These guys are just like maintenance workers. They climbed on top of the building, they cut the power to the lights, and then they wound up, they look like they were actually doing maintenance on an adjacent building.
Like I said, they wound up cutting a hole through the wall and trying to break inside. The interior security was so good at that facility. They didn't get anything. They couldn't really get anywhere, but it was just seeing that level. Okay. of intelligence that, that went into this, you know, it's really well planned.
Tommy: They sound like professionals.
Aaron Burn: If you own a cannabis business and you're trying to prepare your team, I'm going to speak on the dispensary side because that's, that's where my bread and butter is. Uh, I'd say if you're trying to make your, make sure your team as safe as possible. I mentioned the panic buttons a little bit earlier. Definitely a full staff training on panic button utilization. Go into detail with that. Talk to them about, or have the company that installed your panic buttons come and do a training. the good ones will do it, most of the time free.
They'll just have staff come in. practice activating the buttons and seeing how that works. I think that's a very easy thing to do it, and it familiarizes them with how they work. Oftentimes, like if I'm a front desk person at a dispensary and I know there's a panic button under the desk, it's more like a scary thing. You know, I don't want to bump it or touch it or accidentally boom and then just have like, you know, all the police roll up into the dispensary.
It's going to, it's kind of scary, but so, you know, actually training them on that is very useful. Something else I recommend to do, especially if you don't have a security team that works at your facility, using the buddy system. So if I'm an opening manager and I'm going to open up my dispensary, then what I should be doing is waiting till another staff member gets there and entering the building as a duo, as a team. Just so it's not a single person you're way less likely to be targeted if you're, if you're in a group, uh, and I've heard bad stories about people who've gone to open up you know, by themselves and, and even, I mean, even opening, opening and closing, you should be utilizing the buddy system, but I've seen people going and opening up dispensaries and then getting caught up and somebody was waiting for them around the corner in a bush and grabbing them and, They don't have time to press a panic button or do anything.
It's scary stuff, man. So I definitely say if you own a cannabis business and you don't have security opening and closing the facility, especially armed security, make sure you're using a buddy system. Make sure you're training your employees on how, how to look. And if they see something that makes them uncomfortable or they see a person kind of hanging around by the door, it looks like they've been there a while, uh, to just check it out and, and, you know, don't don't be a fool, don't get yourself in trouble. It's too dangerous. Uh, another thing I would say for training your staff is make sure they're, they're good at communicating. This is just on like a, on a daily basis. Uh, if you have a staff member in your dispensary, and maybe they go outside to take a lunch break, and they see somebody hanging around the back taking pictures, you know, the back of the building, stuff like that, you Say something, say something to management, say, Hey, did you see this guy over there doing this? You know, make sure you communicate it. Oftentimes people will get a feeling that they should talk about something and they, they don't wind up acting on it just because they don't want to, you know, shake, rock the boat too much.
But it's important to talk about these things. Maybe the guy's just back there cause he really likes the weed you sold him and he wants to put you on Instagram or something and he's just taking pictures of the back of the, I don't know, but you know, mention it, bring it up. Um, and. Along with communicating about suspicious people, let's talk about banned persons.
There's nothing worse than, a customer that, like a manager, banned. And maybe the manager told him he was banned or, you know, maybe they left a message instead of, you know, talking about, you know, the fact that he's banned with them in person. Then this banned customer comes into the store. And your front desk person doesn't know he's banned.
It's not in any notes in the system. He gets halfway through the check in process. He's inside the building and they're like, you can't shop here, buddy. Uh, happen. I don't know how many times, a lot of times. And it's, it never ends well, cause he probably wasn't banned because he was too nice, usually.
tommy-1: How often should you go through panic button training?
Aaron Burn: I mean, you don't have to do it, you know, all the time. I like, I say like minimum twice a year I think is good. Or if you have like a, like a large hiring going on. Uh, like let's say, you know, your, your business is expanding. 420 is around the corner and you just brought on 10 new people. Maybe in part of that onboarding you can just come through and, and, and have a little panic button training. It, it doesn't hurt. It's never a bad thing. You can, I mean, you can never have. I'm sorry, I have to much training. I always say it's better safe than sorry. And a good security technology company that did that installation, they'll be more than happy to do it. The ones I work with usually they're like, yeah, of course. I just give them a call. I say, Hey, you know, this spot had a pretty big hiring recently. You wanna come by and do a panic button training? Shouldn't have any issues
Tommy: That's what I hear A lot of break ins are Internal, there's, there's always an internal kind of involvement, uh, with Have you seen any protocols that really work to deter internal influence?
Aaron Burn: I would say having really, like Everybody's always afraid of maybe you have an inventory manager or someone like that who's Because they're looking at all the logs all the time They wind up stealing or something and it's hard to catch because like they're the head of inventory people worry about that a lot as far as to kind of get around that having really good cameras always I mean I I'll talk about the cameras all day and night, but if you can have great coverage, especially in your, in your vault, where the flower is and on the perimeter, also around the registers and, uh, anywhere where a product is exchanged for cash, you're, you're generally covered.
And, and if you have, uh, multiple inventory managers you have your general manager involved at some level and just overseeing the inventory process, it's harder. First, I'm going to get away with stuff like that.
tommy-1: What are the top three to five things that somebody should have regarding security?
Aaron Burn: Top three to five things that somebody should have regarding security. Well, I think alarm response, uh, is a good thing you should have. I think, I think you're, if you hire a security company, they should have a manager that's always keyed in on the alarm response. This is important because you don't want to be that person that gets a call at three in the morning to go check out the business.
Uh, cause the alarm went off and you're like, ah, it's probably just a false alarm or you don't want to get up and go for, at least for my company, the way we do it is if that alarm goes off, you know, no matter what, I gotta be there. I can check the cameras and see if it's, uh, alarm or this or that, but somebody, I got to show up, you know, no matter what. it is a false alarm, but got to check the building, got to make sure everything's clear and it's not very safe. You know, if you're, if you're a general manager, you don't have training in that, in that, uh, aspect, really want to even go check out your business at three in the morning. So that's something I would definitely recommend to make the business more secure. Definitely. Invest in very good quality alarms and cameras and a good camera software for sure, for sure. Make sure your lighting is good. Before you even open your business, getting a good location is important. Like I said, you don't want to be kind of tucked away behind a, behind a building.
You want to be more out in the open. I mean, obviously it's better for, for, you You know, getting people to come shop at your place if it's easier to find, but it's also safer usually. Yeah. I'd say those are my top, top things, top recommendations.
Tommy: What should somebody look for when hiring a security firm?
Aaron Burn: The number one thing you should look for when hiring a security firm is you want to find a company that's flexible, that will work with you. I always say cannabis businesses are so different. That's the great thing about this industry is because you, I talked to so many different entrepreneurs. They have all these different ideas. Like, I see so many creative people in this space. And their businesses are always so different. Eh, because it's often an extension of them. And so, you may have a business that's completely different to somebody else's business. You may have ideas that are different than somebody else's ideas. the vendors that you hire can't, they're not going to be one size fits all.
You have to find someone that's going to be customized to your place of business. I always say, I don't have a single security program that runs exactly like another. Like, every single program I have is bespoke to that cannabis business. And finding a security partner that can do that and is flexible like that is very important. It's easier for my company because we're smaller, we're a Maryland business, and, you know, because we're here, and I'm here all the time in Maryland, I can go and talk. to the owners and the management and make sure that the program is customized to their, to their location. Uh, but yeah, you want to find flexibility.
You want to make sure that if you want your security team to be like undercover, like we'll have a location where my guys are essentially undercover, they're wearing plain clothes. They'll wear your cannabis business logo on their shirt, they're concealed carrying. They just look like staff. Uh, I've worked where I just look like staff.
I had one person, uh, Accused me of being the owner of the business just because I, I had my nose and everything going on that day. They're like, are you the owner? I said, no, I'm just nosy I'm just, just a nosy security guard. But, uh, But, um, yeah, so flexibility,
Tommy: When does it make sense to have an undercover security team?
Aaron Burn: so there's a couple reasons why somebody may do it. Typically, from ownership perspective, the reason why they're gonna want the security team to be undercover is because. An overt security presence may make customers feel uncomfortable. You know, at the end of the day, this is a retail business. If you're a dispensary, you know, and like people don't go to like a hot topic and there's like, like a guy there with like a bulletproof vest and a rifle outside of the hot topic.
You know, sometimes that can, that can be uncomfortable for people and you know, I get it. so, but, but the ownership, they, they understand that. They want their customers and their staff to be protected, but they want to make sure that the business is welcoming. So, it's, it's incumbent on I have to hire guys that are very welcoming and very friendly, uh, for these businesses.
And then I have to make sure that they work and they fit in there like they're, like they're part of the family, like they're part of the culture. And then we can see that often having a very positive effect even on sales and on, on customer retention and things of that nature. You may want to have a more overt presence, you know, if you, if you would like, like, more of like a deterrent, like you're afraid of certain things happening in your business and you'd rather, you know, if a person were to come by and think about starting some trouble they see the guard and they're like, no, not going to start trouble here, you know, so it, it just kind of depends. your location and the things that you want and how you wish your business to be perceived from a customer perspective.
It would be very uncomfortable, as a normal customer to go into a retail shop and see someone just fully armed. And I think it makes the place look more dangerous.
Aaron Burn: Yeah it could do that.
Tommy: Yep.
Aaron Burn: especially the bulletproof vest, right? Because, and you see it, you see it here in Maryland quite a bit. You'll see guys with a full bulletproof vest on. My, my company policy, we're pretty, pretty against that, man. I just think it's overkill. I mean, you don't really see. Police officers even with the full bulletproof vest on looking like SWAT or something like that. So sometimes it can be a little bit uncomfortable, but you know, there's always a time and place for stuff like that.
Tommy: How important is it to have armed security versus non armed?
Aaron Burn: That's a great question actually. Armed versus unarmed. My company, we, we don't do unarmed in cannabis businesses. We don't do it because there's too much cash and the risk can be generally too high. Uh, in 2015, the Wharton School of Business at UPenn did a study where they found that 50 percent of Canvas businesses get burglarized.
Uh, now this was 10 years ago, you know, so I'm sure the statistics have changed. It's actually pretty hard to get statistics on things like this I found. 50 percent is, that's a lot. know, that's, that's, that's very high. And, and the reason is because there, there is so much cash in these businesses generally. And we, we always tell, I tell my team all the time, I say, look, not armed because you're trying to stop, you know, whoever from, from stealing the ATM or something, you're, you're armed because you want to make sure that the staff and customers are safe. We don't, say, and you know, sometimes people don't like it, our, our goal is to protect people.
That's, that's why we're there doing that. Um, but we don't do unarmed. And the other problem with unarmed security is Here in Maryland, you have to go through a decent amount of training, especially now, to be an armed guard. Um, there, there's a higher standard of training and you find that you, people who invest in training, they're generally trying to do it, make it like more of a career. someone who's unarmed, At least in the past it's been, you know, they're, they're looking for a job, looking for some work and there's nothing wrong with that. But the people who are really, really into it and really focused, know, you, you tend to attract a higher level of, of employee, at least on my end when you do armed and then I have less problems, you know, more professional staff. Yeah.
Tommy: So what else should somebody look for when thinking through about the security from the, uh, that they should work with?
Aaron Burn: Yeah, I mean Let's say, you know, you have, you have a dispenser and you're having Ric Flair come through to market his product line or something like that, you know. If Ric Flair's coming through, I don't know what kind of crowds, you know, Ric Flair's pulling these days, but it could be pretty big, you know.
So, is that team, is that security team gonna have the staffing where they can bump it up, they can increase? Are these people that they bring gonna be professional? Are they going to be personable? I don't know. going to be welcoming? And are they going to, you know, make sure that everybody's safe and the event is orderly? Uh, so your customers have a good experience. Are they going to be, will the team work overnight if need be? know, let's say you have, you know, an increase in break ins in your area, you're worried about your facility being hit. Maybe you say, hey, can you guys put an overnight person here? Well, does that team have the ability to put a person who's, who's going to work overnight?
And are they going to actually be vigilant instead of just sleeping in the car, you know? Yeah, and, and you can tell like when you hire a security company, the people, are they well dressed? Do they look good? Do they look presentable? know, the, the biggest difference, I said this at my Nikan event actually on Saturday too, The number one giveaway from like a sloppy security guard or a security company to like a professional one is, they take a problem and escalate it instead of deescalating a small problem? Because security is supposed to take a small problem and de escalate it and make sure that your business is running better. If they take a problem and they escalate it, you know, what are they doing there? Why do you have them? You know, you're just creating more problems. And unfortunately we see that a lot with, you know, poorly trained guys.
You know, it's unfortunate, but you just increase the training, you teach them how to de escalate. Some people are naturally gifted at it. I've seen it. I remember I hired a guy. years as a SWAT guy. And then he wound up selling insurance after he retired. He was just a very fun, personable guy. And he was so slick. He could deescalate almost any situation. This I remember some people have it naturally, but you know, some are trained to do it. like I said, you do not want somebody who's just going to escalate a situation. Yeah,
Tommy: That's especially when there's so much on the line and there's tension and people are armed. would be terrible.
Aaron Burn: When I went to the conference on Saturday, I actually couldn't find the entrance. I'm walking around, I see a security guard, you know, uh, a little bit down the street. I'm like, oh, my people. So I'm going to go ask this guy, you know, how do I get into the conference? And when I walk up to him, I'm like, hey man, which way is the conference? And he says, it's up there. And I'm like, okay, do I take this street a little further down? Or do I, you know, just immediately cut through this alleyway? He said, man, it's up there. He like waved me off. remember I remember being like you know if I was like an angry agitated person I would have got upset at the way this guy was talking me And he was paid to be there by the conference, but he didn't even want to actually give me a good direction He just wanted me to leave him alone, so he'd go back to Playing Candy Crush or something you know so
Tommy: Speaking of stories, you've probably seen a lot in what you do. What are some of the wildest things you've seen?
Aaron Burn: Yeah, I got some good ones, so uh this is a fun one I actually forgot to touch on this when you asked me about perimeter security, but tinting your windows is important having tinted windows, so Your staff inside can see out of the building, but people outside can't see in and I'll give you a quick for why that's important, so One day I was working at a dispensary in Baltimore as I'm sitting there looking out.
I see some people on the camera. You know kind of across the street moving pretty fast I look through the tinted window and I see two guys with black rifles running up to the dispensary. I'm like, oh no! So I lock the door, secure the building, pull everybody in the back where it's safe and I'm like, you know, what's going to happen? I go up there, these guys get in front of the building and uh, they're airsoft rifles. These guys are just playing airsoft uh, out in front of the, out in front of the building. You know, young adults, young adult men, but It was funny because I think they may have painted the rifles to look more realistic or something, but like I think multiple people called the police on them because, I mean, it was a very sketchy looking situation.
Tommy: Yeah.
Aaron Burn: the fact that I could see them on the camera and through the tinted windows and the building was already, you know, in a safe state before they even got there. So, you know, that's, that's pretty funny. People love that story because uh, it's so crazy. And another funny story, this kind of relates to making sure you have a flexible company that you work with. One of my places that I work at had a gas fire the shopping center. So like, it wasn't their business, it was an adjacent or a business that was close by. Um, had like some type of fire that went into some gas pipe under the complex. And Like all the power got shut down and it was just like a crazy thing.
Cause you can see this fire spouting, um, out of this pipe, you know, and they shut down all the power and they, you know, in Maryland are required to have backup generators, you know, to make sure that power is getting, you know, to the facility and so that the cameras stay active. But they were worried because, If someone is like an opportunistic criminal and they see like, Hey, the power's down, they're not thinking, Oh, Maryland state, uh, regulations are going to have, you know, a backup generator running in there.
They're like, Oh, I'm just going to break in here. So I had to sit in the business, you know, overnight for a couple of days until they got that sorted. But you know, having somebody who's going to be able to do that, you know, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta pick your, your partner as well. pretty fun
Tommy: what should be the budget that someone, like a dispensary, should set aside for security monthly?
Aaron Burn: That's a really good question. I would say, my personal preference, depending on the size of your dispensary, I think one guard is fine, one. I think all day coverage is best. I think one guard all day, if you have a big event, you can flex up to maybe two or more or something like that. don't think security is that necessary unless there's an increase in break ins in your area? Or if you have some other type of intel that may have you do that then just trying to find the pay rate Unfortunately in Maryland prices are always increasing they they just um Change the the training requirements, which is going to I think I'm anticipating seeing an increase in security costs here in Maryland. I'm not sure how it is in other states You But anywhere from like, you're going to pay anywhere from 35 to maybe even up as much as like 55 an hour per guard. see, sometimes more, I mean, it could depend on the circumstances. So you have to kind of budget that along with, know, how, what kind of hours are you looking at for your business? And then normally that'll come with like, uh, you know, some type of fee for a project manager or a supervisor, something like that. And then you also have alarm response, which can vary greatly business to business. Yeah.
Tommy: In your opinion, let's say if I was a dispensary and cash is, or maybe I'm new and I don't know, about my cash flow situation to have an onboard all the time is having someone there when you're opening a dispensary or closing a dispensary which area or which time makes more sense based on your experience.
Aaron Burn: Yeah. Actually, a situation like that, I would look at, well, in my opinion, I mean, somebody can try your business. Opening or closing. It can go either one. It's a good idea to try to figure out what days you have the highest traffic on and then try to prioritize that. I've seen companies do it just weekend security or like Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I would say if you have to pick between morning or evening, I would probably go evening generally. There's more stuff going on in the evening. You're going to have a lot more like disgruntled customers after a long day at work, you know, but things happen, you know, at all times of the day. It's generally better to take a look at your cash flow and do an analysis on your business like that and figure out what, what times are the peak for the most customers coming in.
Cause obviously the most customers coming in is the most likely time you're going to need security. Um, you're doing no security in the morning, just in the evenings, make sure you're running that buddy system in the morning. Make sure that your staff are very vigilant when they're opening the facility and make sure that you know, I would prefer if you have a staff member that even, I mean, this may be going overboard, but maybe they can pull the cameras up on their phone and just check around the building or something before they go inside. If they see somebody strange kind of hanging around in the front of the building and going in the back, you know?
Tommy: Aaron, what else haven't we covered regarding security?
Aaron Burn: If your business has a lot of registers, make sure that you have great camera coverage over the registers. I mean all around those registers. This is just a, it's not necessarily a security related tip, but this is useful for business owners because All the time you're going to have a bud tender maybe mis scanning an item, throwing it in a bag or something like that and, handing it to a customer. When the customer gets an extra pre roll or, or, you know, something in their bag, they may not come back and report it, right? You know, they may just kind be like, Oh, great. Uh, but it could cause a headache for your inventory team because now they're like, Some of our cannabis is disappearing and they try to keep very careful track of it. So being able to take a look at those registers, like literally right next to where the register is often, you know, set the product down while they're ringing it out. Just making sure that you've got good camera coverage there. It's useful. Also, if you have like a curbside or delivery option, make sure that you've got good coverage, in those areas. Another thing I'd say is have, uh, have a plan. for when you're receiving deliveries into your business or if you're a growth facility when you're sending one out. Just because that's a time when I would say you could see, you know, maybe a criminal trying to do something. Here in Maryland we had an incident months ago where there was actually a cash pickup and somebody, somebody robbed them. So, you gotta, you gotta be careful doing cash pickups and drop offs, you And, uh, gotta always, always be vigilant. You can't ever get too complacent because the, the, know, maybe you've done it a hundred times and nothing has ever happened, so you're just kind of relaxed. But you gotta understand the, the nature of the business we're in, which is, you know, there is a lot of cash. And until we get a change to that, you know, we always have to, always have to be careful.
Tommy: Aaron, you dropped some gems. Thank you so much for on. Where can our listeners find you?
Aaron Burn: Yeah, so, our company is called Bri-Bet. Bri-Bet Security Solutions. Yup, there's a hyphen between Bri and Bet. Let me pull the website. I don't know if I can share my screen. But, just go to Bri-Bet. com, Bri, R I B E T. com, just like behind my head.
Tommy: Perfect. Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming on today.
Aaron Burn: Tommy. I had a blast.
Tommy: I hope you guys enjoyed this episode as always thank you for your support until next time. Take care.
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