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Most dispensary operators find out their surveillance system is non-compliant in one of two ways. An inspector points at a camera and asks why it does not cover the safe door. Or an inventory discrepancy surfaces five weeks after it happened, someone goes looking for the footage, and it has already been overwritten.

Neither of those is a technology failure. Both are the result of buying a camera system against a specification somebody found online rather than against the regulation that actually applies.

That is a more common problem than it sounds, and there is a specific reason for it.

This article is general information, not legal or compliance advice. Cannabis regulations differ by state and by city, and they change often. Verify current requirements directly with your state licensing authority and your local jurisdiction before you buy anything.

The numbers you find online contradict each other

Spend an hour reading dispensary security guides and you will collect a set of confident, specific, mutually incompatible figures.

On retention alone, published guides variously state that Michigan requires 14 days and that Michigan requires 30. That Illinois requires 30 days and that Illinois requires 90. That Oregon requires 90 days and that Oregon requires a full year. Nevada gets described as 60 days flat in one place and as seven days for routine footage with 60 for anything flagged as suspicious in another.

One widely copied guide lists a minimum camera resolution of 640 by 470 pixels. That is not a resolution that exists in video surveillance. It is a typo that has been reproduced across the industry for years, which tells you how much of this material is written by people reading each other rather than reading the rules.

The practical consequence is that a specification sheet assembled from secondary sources is worthless as a compliance document. Two guides will give you two answers, your inspector will be working from the actual regulation, and the regulation is the only one that counts.

So the useful thing is not another table of numbers. It is knowing which categories every state regulates, so you can go read your own rule and ask your vendor the right questions.

What every state regulates

The specifics vary enormously. The structure barely varies at all. Almost every cannabis surveillance rule addresses the same seven things:

Minimum resolution. Usually expressed in pixels, sometimes expressed functionally as an ability to clearly identify any individual on the premises. Colorado’s approach has historically been the functional kind, framed around identification at a stated distance rather than a pixel count.

Minimum frame rate. Commonly between 10 and 15 frames per second. This is the number most often missed, because cameras are frequently configured for a higher resolution at the cost of frame rate.

Coverage zones. Entrances and exits, point of sale and cash handling, every area where product is weighed, packaged, stored, or moved, and limited-access areas. This is where most citations originate.

Continuous recording. Not motion-activated. Twenty-four hours a day, including when you are closed.

Retention period. The number of days footage must remain available.

Availability to regulators. Often including a requirement that footage be retrievable remotely, on demand, over an internet connection.

Power continuity. Many states require a backup power source so recording survives an outage.

Some states add off-site or mirrored backup, tamper resistance, and specific rules about who may access recordings.

California as a worked example

California is worth walking through because it is the largest legal market, the rules are unusually explicit, and the requirements are consistently reported across sources.

Under the Department of Cannabis Control’s regulations, a licensed retailer needs a digital video surveillance system recording at a minimum of 1280 by 720 pixels, continuously, at no less than 15 frames per second. Coverage must include all entries and exits, every area where cannabis goods are handled or stored, and all point of sale areas. Recorded footage must be retained for at least 90 calendar days and must be available to the DCC on request, including remotely. Systems need backup power so recording continues through an outage.

Two details operators routinely miss.

First, the retention requirement for video and the retention requirement for records are different. Surveillance footage is 90 days. Security and business records generally run to seven years. Conflating them in either direction creates a problem.

Second, video retention is a minimum, not a target. More on why that matters below.

California also requires a professionally monitored alarm system and, for most storefront retail license types, a security guard on site during business hours. A camera platform does not satisfy either of those. They are separate line items with separate vendors, and treating a video system as a substitute is a straightforward way to fail an inspection while believing you are covered.

Why a system that meets the spec on paper still fails

This is the part that surprises people. Inspectors do not review your installation paperwork. They look at footage.

A camera can sit inside a mandated coverage zone and still produce a documented gap. Mounted at the wrong angle it misses the safe door. Positioned opposite a display case it picks up enough glare to wash out the register. Pointed at a glass entrance in afternoon sun it delivers a silhouette instead of a face. Every one of those installations passes a checklist and fails a review.

Resolution ratings behave the same way. A camera that hits its rated specification in a lab can produce unusable images in a real retail environment, particularly in the mixed lighting most dispensaries run: bright display cases, dimmer floor, backlit doorway.

The test worth applying before an inspector applies it: pull footage from each mandated zone, at the times of day the lighting is worst, and see whether you can identify a person and read a transaction. If you cannot, the system does not comply regardless of what the spec sheet says.

The retention trap

Minimum retention is the number most operators configure to, and it is the wrong number to configure to.

Inventory discrepancies are usually not discovered on the day they occur. They surface during a count, days or weeks later. Employee theft investigations start after a pattern becomes visible, which by definition takes time. If your system retains exactly the legal minimum, a meaningful share of the incidents you will actually want footage for will have aged out before anyone goes looking.

Storage is the cheapest part of this whole equation and the only one that buys back a decision you cannot otherwise reverse. Configure past the minimum.

What that means for storage

Retention is a function of camera count, bitrate, and days. A useful planning figure: a 5MP camera recording H.265 at 15 frames per second consumes roughly 3 Mbps, which works out to about 32 GB per day, or a little under 1 TB per camera across 30 days.

For a thirty-camera dispensary at California’s 90-day requirement, that is real capacity, and it is the number that determines whether your system quietly stops holding 90 days somewhere in year two as cameras get added.

There is also a continuity question that sits underneath all of this. Because the requirement is continuous recording with no gaps, it matters a great deal whether recording depends on your internet connection. Systems that stream every camera to a vendor’s cloud stop recording when the connection drops, and an outage becomes a compliance gap. Systems that record to an appliance on site keep recording through the outage, and only the remote access features pause. Coram works this way, and can read existing IP cameras rather than requiring the whole estate be replaced, which matters if you inherited a system with a lease. Whatever platform you evaluate, ask the question directly: what is still recording when the internet is down?

What to ask before you sign

• Which specific regulation section are you designing this system against? Ask them to cite it.
• Show me footage from each mandated zone at the worst lighting hour of the day.
• What retention does this configuration actually deliver, at today’s camera count and at the count I will have in two years?
• What still records during an internet outage, and during a power outage?
• How do I produce footage for a regulator on demand, and how long does it take?
• Does this system satisfy the monitored alarm requirement, or is that a separate vendor? Get this in writing.
• What happens to my footage if I stop being your customer?

Then take the answers to your compliance counsel and your state’s published regulation, in that order.

The operators who get this right treat surveillance as part of the license rather than part of the buildout. The system is not finished when the cameras are mounted. It is finished when someone has pulled footage from every mandated zone, looked at it honestly, and confirmed that it would survive being handed to an inspector.