ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – St. Louis County Police are investigating an attempted burglary at a medical marijuana dispensary on Tuesday near Florissant. The police reported that the incident occurred around 5:15 a.m. The suspects drove a car into the building through a window.
Police said there were no arrests, but extensive damage to the property which temporarily closed the Cookies dispensary store.
“Yeah, it worries me,” said Jack Haddox, Director of Retail for SWADE Cannabis which operates five St. Louis area dispensaries. “I’m not worried about any of the products we have in here. I’m not worried about the cash we have in here, but I am worried, about the people, the patients who come in here, our staff…and taking away what so many people view as a serious medicine away from them and taking away a spot to get it.”
The state law requires dispensaries to store marijuana products in a vault, similar to a bank.
“It’s not like our vault is back there just absolutely overflowing with the product. I have a couple of days worth of stuff and very limited cash kept on the premises,” Haddox said.
The surveillance cameras at a SWADE dispensary in south St. Louis caught a group of suspects from multiple angles trying to break-in. The video showed the suspects throwing bricks and kicking at the store’s front glass, but they never made it inside the building.
Haddox said the SWADE dispensary at the west county location has enhanced security which makes it nearly impossible for thieves to break in.
“I think this store, in particular, has 75 cameras. Every single square inch of our building is on two high-def camera views…there’s a wire mesh that surrounds every wall in this building,” he said. “You’re not going to be able to get through our glass. There’s a ballistic mesh behind that. Trying to get into the vault is going to be near impossible. Any wannabe thief is going to be pretty disappointed if they get into the store.”
St. Louis County police did not say if anything was stolen from the Cookies dispensary store.
