Security guard invited to a party with hot women, skips work.

If I was that guard, I would be suspicious. Getting invited to party with hot women: Something is seriously amiss.

Guard was in on the heist.

@ 1 & 2, my first thought too. An awfully convenient coincidence that the security guard just happened to be missing that night. He's either in on it, or Manning told him not to come in.

Ugh, this means the businesses and homes near the pot shops can be in danger too. Very lucky no one got killed. These shops should do what the zoo does, they have iron safes built into the floor and employees drop money into them several times throughout the day, so there's never much money in the cashiers' tills. Then in the morning, the head cashier and managers empty the safes with the security people and the money go straight to the bank. Keeps everyone safe.

This shop's security plan is flawed, what if the robbers had shot the employees and taken off right away? Watching the security cameras at his home works for calling the cops, but it doesn't protect his employees from getting killed by more murderous criminals.

@1,2,3 or he didn't come in and the inside man decided this was the best shot they had and called his friends.

If banks would just process payments for these shops wouldn't have much cash on hand as people would be able to pay with cards. If the government would get with the program already and just legalize weed the street value would go down and the stores would be less of a target.

@4 The Greenwood/Crown Hill area has had a high number of armed robberies, street muggings and drive by shootings this year. Very little of that is reported. The pot shops are among the safer areas by comparison.

@4 @5 this was only $900, and the article says the cash isn't as much of a problem as we've heard. The inventory is small, valuable, and easy to resell, and it can't be inaccessible to the employees...

@5 and @8 are spot on. The guard wasn't in on it, but he was off partying with babes and the inside man capitalized on that. The cash on hand was very limited, because (@4) they DO actually have robust cash handling policies and a bank in which to deposit their dough, but the robbers weren't primarily interested in cash. One quote I didn't get to put into this article, that I don't remember offhand, was something from Ryan Kunkel to the effect of "they can resell the product at face value on the black market in non-legal states and until cannabis is legal nationwide, these robberies will keep happening." Essentially, the banking fix is a small piece of the puzzle, federal legalization is—as in so many other areas of the cannabis industry—the most important thing.