Cannabis Cultivation Site in Ventura County, California

We recently completed a project in the heavily regulated cannabis industry for a small-scale cultivator in Ventura County. The client came to us looking for help designing a surveillance system that met compliance requirements but didn't break the bank.

In order to accomplish this, we had to reference the security requirements from both the state's Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) and the Ventura County municipal code. Like other areas in the state, Ventura County has adopted a code similar to the state, albeit, a little less stringent. To ensure compliance at all levels of government, we defaulted to the state requirements, which have a higher, more defined regulatory code.

System Design

The DCC requires 90 days of recording retention at a minimum resolution of 720p at 15 frames per second (FPS). This set the parameters for the hardware that would be required. One strong contrast in code to consider, the DCC does not require surveillance systems for cultivation-only business licenses. However, the county does.

To meet budget requirements, we opted for a Ubiquiti camera system that offers a full-service suite right out of the box with no subscription charge. The cameras come in around $200 a piece, leaving the storage device and cloud server as the bulk of the cost.

Covering all ingress and egress points, all areas of plant handling, and avenues of approach from the road, we were able to accomplish full surveillance coverage with just shy of a dozen cameras. This was in part due to the simplistic layout of the building structure, which we were able to pass these savings on to the client.

Site Security Plan

During the course of the installation, the client asked us to review a previous edition of the site security plan before their business license inspection that was scheduled for less than a month and a half away. Unfortunately, their existing plan did not match their operation and could not feasibly be implemented in time for their inspection. Needless to say, they had a generic security plan with an organizational hierarchy that did not match the client's.

Using our experience in the cannabis industry, we were able to draft a new site security plan that highlighted all of the state and county requirements in a timely manner. The client was able to send the document off to the county executive's office in advance of the business license inspection.

To ensure there was no doubt the client would obtain their business license, our Principal Consultant, Christian Garner, attended the inspection and was able to address some concerns the inspectors had regarding the site. After the concerns were addressed, the county was completely satisfied with the inspection and guaranteed issuance of their business license on the first round!