Ballwin is Poised to Add Flock Safety’s Cameras on Manchester Road

 (Here is the longer version of my West Newsmagazine article posted on June 16, 2021.)

Police departments, businesses and homeowner associations alike have been flocking to Flock Safety at an exponential rate since the 2017 inception of that Atlanta-based company.

     Following a presentation from Territory Sales Manager Lisa Dunn at its June 14 board meeting, Ballwin voted unanimously to purchase two Flock Safety cameras.  One will be aimed westbound and the other eastbound along Manchester Road. 

    “At Flock Safety, our mission is to eliminate crime,” Dunn said.  “We do that by detecting the evidence that goes through these cameras, decoding that information with the software that we have, and then delivering it into the right hands.”

     The official name of the equipment is Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) cameras.   Flock Safety currently boasts service of such items to 4,000 cities nationwide.

     The police department, which is how Ballwin serves to utilize the cameras, can then look through to see when vehicles that fit a certain type and color passed by a specific area.

     Dunn proceeded to show specifics of how the software works in processing information so vehicles can be recognized more easily than by any traditional or even other recent methods.

     “The main difference of our camera systems is that we can do wide-scale deployment, and that’s by utilizing solar panels and LTE (Long Term Evolution as in 4G wireless) connectivity,” Dunn said. “But we also utilize a vehicle fingerprint technology.  This gives you more information on the vehicle itself for the officers to be able to look through that evidence and find the right vehicle in question.

     “The technology that we use is called Machine Learning Technology.  Whenever a vehicle passes through, a camera is motion activated so it takes a series of pictures.  We are able to then pick up the entire vehicle so that when the criminals come into the area with no plates or even with a stolen plate.”

     Each image can be expanded to give more information, including how many times a vehicle has passed through and where it’s been over the past 30 days. Dunn gave a demonstration of how the system can quickly go through some 2,700 objects to narrow down the details to five in the case of recovering stolen vehicles.  Dunn gave an example of one stolen from Ellisville, and with the help of a camera there, the vehicle was quickly found in Florissant thanks to that municipality’s cameras.

     The methodology has also helped stymie kidnapping cases as in her example of one in Memphis that was solved in a positive manner in just one hour’s time.

     In response to Mayor Tim Pogue’s inquiry, Dunn said that the information is readily available to a police department for 30 days before being stored on Amazon Web Services.

     “It’s your guys’ information,” Dunn said.  “We do not share it.  We do not sell it.  We only share it if you want us to share it.  Again, with the multi-agencies, they’re all sharing with each other, but they have to let us know if they want to share.”

     Per Alderman Kevin Roach’s (Ward 2) question, the cost to the city would be $2,500 per camera per year with a one-time installation fee of $250.  Dunn said that normally, the purchase numbers by municipalities depends on the city’s population & number of officers.  Current area municipality camera numbers include 10 in Fenton-10, 17 in Wentzville and 18 in O’Fallon. 

     “The chief wanted to start with two and see how it goes, and then we would go from there,” Roach said.  “That was his recommendation.”

      “Also, we’re working in cooperation with other municipalities,” Alderman Jim Leahy Ward 3) said.  “To be honest, we have one major thoroughfare (Manchester), and that’s where we’re putting them.  So, I agree with the place we’re starting.”

     Concerned that it could drastically affect the workload for Ballwin’s dispatchers and officers, fellow Ward 3 alderman Frank Fleming mentioned a different sidelight to the camera issue.

     “The case we talked about (at a previous meeting) was that the license plate determines if there’s a warrant, and our dispatcher has to kind of run the additional information,” Fleming said.  “That’s primarily what we’re still talking about, right?”

     Police chief Doug Schaeffler confirmed it could readily be used for warrants and also for other violations. But he reiterated that, even though that will take a lot more time and effort from his department, that’s part of their job.

     As yet another selling point, Dunn added that her company’s software is adding and releasing new features every quarter.  They work with countless law enforcement agencies who tell them precisely what’s needed to do their job to the best of their ability. 

     “One of the things they were saying is that we need more identifiers on the vehicle, whether back rack, top rack, bumper stickers, etc,” Dunn said.  “So, we just released that last quarter. We do take every advice from our law enforcement agencies to best help them.”

     Finally, Alderman Michael Finley (Ward 1) had the floor just prior to the unanimous passing of the motion.

     “One of the reasons we went to this exercise was to allay any concerns about personal liberties being hindered,” Finley said.  “We’ve done our due diligence, having this discussed at two meetings.  There have been two sessions where citizens could have come and voiced any concerns.  Nobody has. I haven’t received any adverse communication from constituents, so I wanted to have that duly noted in the minutes that there has not been any negative citizen feedback that I’m aware of.  If there is, I assume my colleagues would let us know.  Otherwise, everything looks in order to proceed.”

Justice Grown to Add a Medical Marijuana Dispensary in Ballwin

 (This is the longer version of my May 13, 2021 West Newsmagazine article)

     When Mitch Zaveduk stepped to the podium at the May 10 meeting, Mayor Tim Pogue and nearly every Ballwin board member had at least one question for him. 

     Zaveduk was representing petitioner Justice Grown or Justice Cannabis Company for Bill 4096 that read as follows:  “AN ORDINANCE GRANTING A SPECIAL USE EXCEPTION TO JUSTICE GROWN DISPENSARY FOR OPERATION OF A MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY AT 14787 MANCHESTER ROAD.”

      By a unanimous vote (except for Ward 1 Alderman Michael Finley, who made an early evening exit), that entity was successful in obtaining a Special Use Exception for a medical marijuana dispensary at the former location of Callier's Deli, becoming Ballwin Ordinance 21-13.

     Just prior to Zaveduk's 25-minute interlude, Alderman Kevin Roach (Ward 2), with his city's concern in mind, had an inquiry for City Attorney Robert Jones.

     “Is this petition or proposal in compliance with federal law, specifically the Controlled Substances Act?" Roach asked.  "If it is not, does the city have any liability if we were to approve it, and it is not in compliance?”

     “Marijuana is considered a Controlled Substance under federal law, and that’s why doctors are not allowed to write prescriptions; that's why it's a cash business" Jones replied.  "There’s a number of different kinds of restrictions that were imposed when the Constitutional amendment was passed by the voters.  But I don’t believe there’s any liability to the city in allowing what the state constitution allows. The vast majority of the United States now either allows medical marijuana or recreational marijuana despite the list of controlled substances in federal law. I don’t have an answer as to why the feds have not made some kind of issue out of that.  Maybe the gentleman who’s here to represent the petitioner can tell you the answer.  I don’t think it imposes any liability on the city to follow state law.”

    Zaveduk added that more changes are likely on the horizon, starting with the SAFE Banking Act that on April 21 passed through the U.S. House of Representatives on its way to the Senate. If it passes there, it would be almost certain to be signed by President Biden.

    If that occurs, it won’t clear cannabis off the list of controlled substances, but according to Zaveduk, it will pave the way for federal recognition of cannabis as an industry, and allow the national banks to start doing banking with those entities. He added that the obstacles Roach and Jones mentioned would also be overcome.

     That kicked off Zaveduk’s lengthy question and answer session at the podium after Zaveduk mentioned that Justice Grown is sometimes known as Justice Cannabis Company with Missouri licensing under Growing Jobs Missouri, LLC.  According to current Missouri law, each entity can hold no more than five licenses. He added that the actual dispensary name may be simply referred to as BLOC.

     Alderman Ray Kerlagon (Ward 4) asked, “Do you anticipate more businesses moving into the general area wanting to compete with you?”

      “No.  Actually, I don’t, and for a couple reasons,” Zaveduk said.  “First of all, as an industry, we try not to crowd each other too much.  Once an area is staked out, it kind of boxes out. It’s not like a car dealer or gas station where you go across the street from each other to get the customer on the right side of the street.  That’s not how we operate.  Our customers are destination customers who pre-order their medicine online and come in at a designated time to pick up.  So, it would be a convenience factor for the residents of Ballwin and nearby areas.

     “Here in Missouri, it’s a medical only state.  So, our dispensaries will only be dispensing to patients who have a medical card from the state of Missouri.  If the state changes their mind and has a referendum down the line in a year or two for recreational sales, we could do that.  But right now, this is a discussion for opening a medical dispensary in Ballwin.”

       Justice Grown also has a cultivation license and is going to be building a roughly 200,000 square foot cultivation facility in Hazelwood.  So eventually, they can sell their own product. Zaveduk said that since there aren’t many cultivators up and running right now, there’s a lack of supply, so there’s not much rush to open a lot of dispensaries without cultivation facilities.

        Pogue clarified that per Missouri law is, cannabis has to be grown in Missouri, cultivated in Missouri and any manufacturing has to be done in Missouri to make it a solely Missouri product.  Zaveduk added that anything grown in Missouri also has to be sold in Missouri

     “What type of safeguards will your store utilize to prevent smells from emanating to your immediate next door neighbor?” asked Alderman Ross Bullington (Ward 4).

     “Smell comes into play more when you’re dealing with cultivation and processing, and that’s not on the table here,” Zaveduk said.  “With dispensing, the product typically comes in a vacuum-sealed plastic bag that is bar coded.  We’ll be required to track our product by what’s known as ‘seed to sale.’ So, when we sell the bag, we can tell you that this was grown from this plant; that was housed in this room, it was cloned off of this seed…to purchase.  We track it the whole time. Everything is pre measured, and it comes in a zip-lock, air-tight sealed bag.  So, there is no smell.”

    “There’s also absolutely no consumption allowed of anything on site. These are patients who have something like PTSD or some other problems with cancer or lymphoma.  So, they’re going to come and they’re going to pick up their medicine and they’re going to go home. We won’t let anyone in the store use it and certainly not on the premises, either.”

     Zaveduk mentioned that his parent company bought the entire 2,500 square foot site.  They will be leasing to current tenant Batteries Plus and will be seeking an additional tenant to fill the singular vacant building.  The dispensary is set to be just .6 acres with parking for about 33 cars.  Proposed hours will be approximately 10-6 Mon-Wed, 10-8 Thurs-Sat, and 12-6 on Sunday with 25-30 full-time jobs.

     In response to questions of the building’s security, Zaveduk added theirs will be state of the art.  Not only will there be some 30 cameras both in and outside the building, but he said that he’s had discussions with the Ballwin Police Department to ensure that the latter will also be allowed to be part of the process, offering them a direct feed to the premises.

     “For HIPA reasons and the Privacy Act…since these are actual patients, we would ask that you not turn the camera on and just leave it on,” Zaveduk said.  “But any time you need it for emergency reasons, the camera will avail itself to full access.  It’s all Internet-based.  So, you’d be able to log into an Internet site to immediately have access to all the cameras. Our cameras are high depth to the point where they have extremely high-facial recognition, and we will also be able to match the faces that are getting out of the car.  We’re going to have cameras all over the parking lot, so if a couple a few days later says, ‘Someone hit me in the parking lot.  He was driving a red car, and got me around noon,’ we can do a search with our software. We can assist the police with that, and avail them with this technology as well.  As far as security within the building, we use thumb prints and retinal scans, and biometric security.”

     Zaveduk’s final comments were more of a look at the present-day industry and what it will likely morph into for the remainder of this decade and beyond.

     “To be blunt, a lot of people see this as a golden egg; an opportunity to really get into the ground up on something,” he said.  “So, it’s been a very sexy and attractive industry to a lot of investors.  Many of those are even license seekers where they would put together lawyers and spend the money that it would take to successfully submit an application to the state to be awarded a license.  But yet, as you (Roach) said, not actually having the expertise and background to operate the cannabis within the space, client issues we have to deal with and on-boarding for staff.  So, a lot of people just partner up with more experienced operators.  We’re in the infancy stages of this industry.”

     The stipulations for the Ballwin site’s Special Use Exception are as follows:  https://www.ballwin.mo.us/pageimages/DocumentCenter/4096_-_Medical_Marijuana_Dispensery.pdf