Review of Palm Beach County Medical Maajuana Dispensaries

The Curaleaf dispensary in Lake Worth is near a charter school. No crimes have been reported at the dispensary since it opened in January 2017, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office and the building owner. [JEFF OSTROWSKI/palmbeachpost.com]

Before Florida voters approved medical marijuana in 2016, opponents warned that pot shops' cash and stash would act as powerful magnets for criminals.

More than a year after Palm Embankment County'south first dispensaries opened, no crime moving ridge has materialized. Instead, weed heists have proven non-real at Palm Beach County's cannabis businesses.

A Palm Beach Mail review of police enforcement records finds no reported robberies, burglaries, assaults or other crimes at the county'southward six country-regulated dispensaries.

Related: Cannabis voters flex muscle in Democrats' lonely statewide win

"We've not had i incident where we've had to telephone call everyone," said Scott Berman, owner of the Lake Worth edifice at 1125 Northward. Dixie Highway that's home to Curaleaf's clinic.

That assertion is supported by call logs and incident reports from the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, which patrols Lake Worth. From Curaleaf's opening in January 2018 through mid-February 2019, the sheriff's office reported no incidents related to Curaleaf.

A Mail service review found like silence at the county's other dispensaries. They are:

Knox Medical at i South. Dixie Highway in Lake Worth, which opened in November 2017.
Trulieve at 1324 N. War machine Trail in unincorporated West Palm Beach and 1534 SW Eighth Street in Boynton Beach, both of which opened in October 2018.
Surterra Wellness at 11575 U.S. one in unincorporated North Palm Beach, which debuted in Nov.
GrowHealthy at 4237 Okeechobee Boulevard in unincorporated Westward Palm Embankment, which opened in December.

Like other pot shops throughout Florida, GrowHealthy'southward dispensary is patrolled past a security guard round the clock. A burglar would need a jackhammer to attain the stash, which is secured by thick walls and an eye-recognition organization, said Don Moxley, a company executive.

"Nosotros have security out the ying-yang," Moxley said. "We have a culture of security."

Related: Marijuana dispensaries watch for locations in Palm Embankment County

Knox Medical, meanwhile, occupies a former bank branch across the street from Lake Worth urban center hall — and the onetime banking company vault now serves as a secure storage area for the dispensary's product.

Florida regulators require impenetrable protection and nonstop surveillance. The state mandates that cannabis stores employ 24-hour guards and install cameras at every entrance. The marijuana must be locked in a vault.

"The security requirements are ridiculous," said Ben Pollara, a longtime proponent of cannabis legalization in Florida. "They're much higher than for pharmacies that have thousands of dollars of prescription opioids."

The fortress-like defense force reflects fears that pot shops would nowadays tempting targets. Federal prohibition of weed makes cannabis a greenbacks-merely business, so dispensaries take more currency on hand than most businesses. However, the ascension of apps such equally CanPay allows many sales to take identify without cash.

What'southward more, Florida'southward prohibition on smokable weed might daunt the hopes of thieves. Bricks of leafy green cannabis could appeal to criminal masterminds, merely that product is non bachelor in Palm Beach County's dispensaries. Instead, the inventory is dominated past oils, tinctures and vape cartridges.

And the pot shops aren't open to the public. Patients must win a doctor'due south permission and pay a $75 state fee to patronize cannabis dispensaries. Some 182,470 Floridians had marijuana cards as of February. eight, according to the Florida Section of Wellness.

Fears about weed-related crime led some Florida municipalities, including the city of Boca Raton and the town of Palm Beach, to ban pot shops. Other jurisdictions — including Lake Worth, Palm Beach County, Boynton Embankment, West Palm Beach and Wellington — allow cannabis retailers.

Dispensaries accept drawn stiff feelings from some. When she learned in 2017 that the Curaleaf dispensary would open near her schoolhouse in Lake Worth, lease school principal Renatta Espinoza said she was "furious."

Now that the pot shop has been open for more than a yr, Espinoza, head of the Academy for Positive Learning, said she remains concerned about the potential threat posed past patients buying cannabis for mental wellness disorders.

"No, at that place hasn't been criminal offense," Espinoza said. "Do I like them being there? No, I don't."

The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said the Curaleaf shop has seen no shootouts, no nail-and-grabs, no capers of any kind. Berman said the patients are non-threatening.

"They're a very affluent consumer, and they're an older demographic," Berman said. "You're not seeing the alleged derelict that the principal talked about. The derelict is driving a Mercedes."

The lack of crime follows dire warnings near the dangers of legal weed. In 2016, as Florida voters weighed Subpoena 2, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood, president of the California Land Sheriffs Association, told the Palm Beach Mail that he oftentimes saw gruesome carnage, including shootings, at dispensaries in the Bakersfield area.

"The type of people who tend to hang out there are the blazon of people who tend to exist involved in violent crime," Youngblood said. "I hope Florida does not pass this, because they're going to regret it. It's not virtually medicine. Information technology's about getting high."

That nightmare scenario has gone up in smoke in Florida, underscoring weed proponents' argument that legal cannabis can operate equally benignly equally any other industry.

"They warned near lots of things that had no basis in reality," Pollara said.

jostrowski@pbpost.com

@bio561