The Next ORC Money Makers - CBD Products Hitting the Market
Redefining & Impacting Merchandise Protection Standards - Immediately
As the cannabis industry broadens its offerings in virtually every aspect of retail merchandise, protection standards will be tested to the max. As this will inevitably become a popular organized retail crime category.

Suddenly, CBD is everywhere.
Retailers embrace non-psychoactive hemp products
The CBD gold rush has begun. CBD, the hemical found in hemp and marijuana plants, is showing up in shampoos, lattes, body oils, gummy bears and dog treats. It's being sold in coffee shops and farmer's markets, mom-and-pops and high-end department stores and most recently, drugstore chain CVS.

The CBD floodgates opened after President Donald Trump signed the Farm Bill into law in December. Among other things, the bill legalized the production of hemp, which contains high levels of cannabidiol, or CBD. CBD is non-psychoactive, meaning it won't get you high. (THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, is the chemical in cannabis that does that.) Instead, CBD is marketed for everything from helping to relieve pain and inflammation to reducing stress and anxiety.

High-end department store chain Barneys New York sells a line of CBD skin-care products in seven Barneys locations, including its stores in New York, Chicago and Beverly Hills and on Barneys.com. msn.com

NJ Hardens Link Between Legal Weed And Clean Slates
Tens of thousands of New Jersians could benefit from expungement provisions included in the state’s bill to legalize and regulate adult-use cannabis in what’s become the latest example of how the national discussion around legalization has offered important inroads for advocates of clean slate reforms. Provisions in New Jersey’s proposed legislation would allow for expedited expungement proceedings for convictions including distributing under five pounds of cannabis, possession and possession with intent to distribute.

Ongoing cases in which individuals are charged with these offenses would be dismissed, and employers and mortgage lenders would face monetary penalties if they discriminate based on these types of cannabis convictions. law360.com

Reported in the Daily Last Week:
Walgreens follows CVS' lead - selling CBD products in 1,500 stores
Walgreens will sell CBD creams, patches and sprays in nearly 1,500 stores in select states, the company told CNBC on Wednesday. The drugstore chain will sell the cannabis-based products in Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico, Kentucky, Tennessee, Vermont, South Carolina, Illinois and Indiana. Walgreens declined to specify which brands it would carry.

Rival drugstore chain CVS introduced CBD-containing topicals, including creams and salves, to stores in eight states earlier in March. As the non-psychoactive cannabis compound becomes one of the hottest ingredients in consumer products, retailers are carefully evaluating the market. cnbc.com

FaceFirst Named Among Top Companies to Work for in Los Angeles
FaceFirst has been named one of the top companies to work for in Los Angeles. The compensation, culture and career monitoring website Comparably.com ranked companies by region using data collected from 10 million employee ratings and thousands of salary records. Comparably organized regional winners based on survey data asking about a number of important cultural factors including: including work-life balance, compensation, professional development and leadership. facefirst.com

The Business of Your Face
For years, the most avid paying customers for facial recognition has been law enforcement agencies. More recently, though, a growing number of organizations, including Wal-Mart, are using the software to identify and learn more about the people who enter their physical premises.

This is certainly the case for customers of California-based FaceFirst, which sells facial recognition software to hundreds of retailers, including dollar stores and pharmacies. Peter Trepp, CEO of FaceFirst, says the bulk of his clients use the technology to screen for criminals coming into their stores but, increasingly, retailers are testing it for other purposes such as recognizing VIP customers or identifying employees.

Amazon, meanwhile, appears to be casting a wide net in its efforts to find a business models for face recognition. In addition to selling to police departments, the retail giant is reportedly working with hotels to help them expedite check-in procedures. fortune.com

Is criticism against face recognition justified?
Ethical considerations for deploying commercial face recognition
Estimated to be valued at close to $10bn by 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of 16.8%, the global face recognition market is rising. Major growth forces behind the market are the evolving surveillance market and government expenditures in the arena of biometric technologies; yet, the use of face recognition has much to contribute in other areas, such as helping businesses combat consumer fraud, meet dynamic regulatory compliance, and delivering profitable customer experiences.

Today, face recognition match rates continue to increase every year. Moreover, while a lack of controlled environment for images previously made face recognition near useless, current technology has dramatically improved accuracy and performance. Face recognition technology continues to advance using deep learning methods to maintain higher accuracy when accommodating for uncontrolled facial conditions.

These developments have helped transition facial recognition from mostly specialized technology into a commercialized innovation.

‘The problem’

In the late Spring of 2018, you may have become aware of the aggressive media storm Amazon has come under for the sale of their face rec product, ‘Rekognition’, to law enforcement, allegedly for use in civilian surveillance. This news abruptly made the world appreciate that face rec isn’t just a cool iPhone security feature, but a serious tool that can be leveraged in ways that advance a technologically enabled police state.

Despite its relatively long history, facial recognition is still an emergent technology, with its challenges now well-documented — in particular, misidentification of people with darker skin. The American Civil Liberties Union has cautioned that law enforcement agencies, in lieu of federal regulations, could deploy facial recognition for racial profiling. Many naysayers of the technology are seeing their concerns vindicated. biometricupdate.com

'Super recognizer' cops give facial recognition systems a run for their money
Officers with an extraordinary ability to recognize people's faces could improve the overall effectiveness of the facial recognition technology being trialed by police forces.

You might recognize your neighbors if you glimpsed them in an unfamiliar context, but you might not have the observational skills to identify a hooded figure in a blurry video as the same person who sat opposite you on the train last week. A small handful of people can, though, and this is what separates super-recognizers from the rest of us.

The drawback is the scarcity of people who qualify as super-recognizers. The ability to recognize an extraordinary number of faces is a cognitive quirk first identified by researchers at Harvard University and University College London in 2009, and one that's thought to affect only 2 percent of the population. There's nothing you can do to teach yourself this skill, according to Josh Davis, a reader in applied psychology at the University of Greenwich who studies super-recognizers. You're either born with it or you aren't. (There's even an online test you can take.)  cnet.com

OSHA advises all security officers wear body armor
On Thursday, March 28 2019, The US Department of Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the lead government agency in workplace safety, training, regulations and accident investigations reiterated something that they had mentioned last year after Private Officer International had worked with them regarding security officer injuries and deaths.

During several conversations in 2017 and 2018, we were able to provide substantial documentation and statistics as to the increases of assaults, gunshot wounds and deaths and OSHA issued an advisory in 2018 urging security agency owners to provide body armor for security personnel.

Although this was only a recommendation, they have recently issued a similar statement and added additional comments and recommendations to OSHA 3335 and to the OSHA Security Occupational Safety Guidelines. This federal agency is still a long way from mandating true protection, training and proper equipment for those protecting life and property, but at least they’ve begun taking notice. privateofficerbreakingnews.blogspot.com

New Jersey could raise gun fees by 1100% and security guards would take hit
Gun owners and sellers say proposed fee and tax hikes by Gov. Phil Murphy could stymie their ability to earn a living. Only people who demonstrate a justifiable need for a handgun can legally obtain one in New Jersey. Before their actual purchase of a handgun, prospective buyers currently face a tab of a bit over $50, including permits, identification and a background check, according to numbers provided by the Governor's Office. That grand total, under the Administration's latest proposal, would shoot up to just under $600.

Benny Cardona, a part-time security officer in Newark and Paterson, said people in his field, or interested in his field, would easily be turned off by the exorbitant upfront fees necessary to get their hands on a firearm and actually perform the job. "You're going to kill these guys," Cardona said about the proposed fees. "Some of these places are only paying them $15 an hour, $17 an hour."

And the need for additional security may not be too far ahead in the future, Cardona said. If New Jersey legalizes recreation marijuana, he said, "someone needs to protect those assets." nj1015.com
 

Senior LP & AP Jobs Market

These ‘March Madness’ Souvenirs Are Hot. A Little Too Hot.

The NCAA scrambles to stop players from purloining commemorative rugs from the locker room

What’s black and blue and walked all over? The hottest souvenir at the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Rugs with the March Madness logo on them, laid out in every team locker room of the sprawling nationwide tournament, have become the most coveted item of the postseason. The roughly three-by-five-foot carpets aren’t for sale - which makes them even more desirable.

The rugs are officially supposed to stay put. But among tournament participants, there is a fair amount of confusion about the rules. A thirst for unique keepsakes, along with self-consciousness about pocketing free stuff, has prompted players and staff to sneak around with their tournament booty like pilfering patrons at a luxury hotel. wsj.com

NRF: February retail sales increased 2.7 percent over 2018
Retail sales were down 0.7 percent in February seasonally adjusted from January but up 2.7 percent unadjusted year-over-year as delays and revisions related to the government shutdown continued to make comparisons difficult, the National Retail Federation said today. The numbers exclude automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants. nrf.com

New York is expected to become the 2nd state to ban single-use plastic bags
New York is slated to become the second state in the US to ban single-use plastic bags. The ban, which would go into place next March, is expected to be passed as part of the state's 2020 budget deal, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state legislative leaders said they had agreed to on Sunday.

Californians were the first to implement a statewide ban on plastic bags. Hawaii has local laws in place that prohibit plastic bags throughout the state. cnn.com

   Could Zero-Waste Stores Be the Future of Retail?

Walgreens won't quit cigarettes
Walgreens is testing tobacco-free stores in Illinois and Florida as part of a 12- to 18-month pilot program. The Food and Drug Administration has previously targeted Walgreens for selling tobacco products to minors, leading lawmakers to urge the chain to stop selling tobacco products altogether. While the pharmacy chain does not plan to stop selling cigarettes entirely, Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO Stefano Pessina told The Wall Street Journal that employees are now encouraged to direct cigarette purchasers toward cessation products. linkedin.com

No Fooling On These Retail Facts:
10 Surprising Truths About Starbucks, McDonald's And Walmart
Neiman Marcus sells submarines. Is that for real, or is it for April Fools? In the spirit of April Fools’ Day, Forbes compiled 10 unusual retailer facts that are, indeed, true. Click the link below to read more.

1. Barneys runs a Hollywood head shop
2. Trader Joe is German
3. CVS fills seven prescriptions for every American annually
4. McDonald’s is banned in 10 countries
5. Neiman Marcus trades sales for sails
6. There are enough Starbucks Rewards members to populate Florida
7. Crate & Barrel is as old as Walmart
8. Amazon’s first sale was in computer science
9. Macy’s had first dibs on happy hour
10. Target outlaws Girl Scouts   forbes.com

Charlotte Russe sells off its brands as all stores shutter

Luxury fashion house Roberto Cavalli prepares for North American liquidation

Ascena Is Exploring the Sale of Its Dressbarn Retail Chain

Microsoft Bans April Fools’ Day, Cat Videos

Auntie Anne's Adds Hot Yoga Studios to All Locations ... April Fools!

Last week's #1 article --

'She Lied to My Face': Inside the Hectic Last Days of Gymboree's Retail Bankruptcy