MJBizMag August 2020 - 85

Cameras:
The Heart of Security
Alarms, access, audits and RFID crop tracking:
They're all part of the cannabis cultivation business.
But the new face of security monitoring looks
less like a burly man in a uniform and more like a
reflective camera lens.
" Instead of an armed guard at a customer's site,
we do remote monitoring. With that, we end up
saving the customer a lot of money, " said Mihai
Simon, president of Denver-based ETG Systems.
" Technology can show its investment value when
you pair it with the human element. Then you get
what you're paying for and then some. "
Simon said employing an unarmed guard around the
clock at $20 per hour could cost $200,000 per year.
Physical barriers are the first line of defense against theft.
Photo Courtesy of Source Cannabis
Stuart's team gets motion-sensor
alarm notifications once or twice a
week, though the culprit isn't always
a burglar. " Cats set them off; people
looking in the trash (at the retail
store). " High Desert Relief's alarm
notifies seven people, so there's
always someone to glance at their
phone and handle the situation, no
matter the hour. " In this industry,
you have to sleep lightly, " Stuart said.
Panic buttons are another key
security element. Unlike an alarm
that might alert an owner or sound
a siren, panic buttons instantly notify the police department. These
links to the police cost $50 to $500 to set up, depending how much
Drew Stuart
wiring is involved.
" We typically recommend having fixed panic buttons installed so
you know where they're located, " said Brown, who recommended
one in almost every room. " In addition, you can have mobile panic
buttons, " which employees wear around their wrist or on a lanyard.
" Especially where you have an overnight guard, make sure he has
a fixed panic button, " Simon said. " That's a vulnerability I would
caution against. If you have a guard, make sure he has a panic button
as some kind of backup. "
" An armed guard offers more security but also more
liability. That's a huge cost unless you're a big grow, "
he said. " But you can offset that cost by having a
human guard during the day with a virtual guard at
night and cut guard costs by half-or more. "
" The (criminals) all realize there are cameras at
a facility. What they haven't seen is the speaker
systems we use now, " explained Grant Whitus,
president of Helix Security, also in Denver. " Our live
monitors can say, 'We can see what you're doing,
law enforcement is on the way, and everything's
being recorded.' "
" That's the type of security that's going to happen
more and more, " Simon agreed.
Real-time video monitoring has a range of costs and
a range of ways to measure that expense. Simon
estimated its monitoring services cost between
$100 and $500 per month for most cannabis
growers. Helix Security prices its live monitoring
starting at 50 cents per camera, per hour, for 10 to
20 cameras. By comparison, monitoring an alarm
might cost only $35-$75 per month-but that alarm
tends to notify the police, sometimes for nonissues.
Repeated false alarms could result in charges of
hundreds of dollars per month.
Another advantage to advanced cameras: " There
are vandal-proof cameras that protect from physical
destruction, " said Kevin Brown, Helix Security's sales
manager. " One of our video analytics is tampering
detection. If somebody spray-paints over a camera,
an alert pops up on our operator's screen, and we
know that camera's gone out. "
Similarly, all Helix systems include a battery-backup
system. States mandate different battery backup
times-in Colorado, it's four hours. That battery
backup stays in the security room with a grower's
video storage.
" Remote video monitoring or virtual guard
services are a hot subject for all industries, not just
cannabis, " Simon said. " That's because the value is
tremendous. "
- Susanna Donato
August 2020 | mjbizdaily.com 83
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MJBizMag August 2020

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