Security guard services in Los Angeles from CAL Security Group, with an office on W Jefferson Blvd near USC. Our unarmed officers, licensed through the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services (BSIS), work from written post orders and file a report after every shift.
The City of Los Angeles covers about 470 square miles of land, and the security problem changes every few miles along the 110, the 10 and the 101. A Century City lobby and a Boyle Heights warehouse yard need different instructions. Every Los Angeles job starts with a walk of the property and ends with post orders written for that one address.
Every officer we post holds a guard card from the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services (BSIS), the state agency that licenses security companies and their guards. CAL Security Group holds a BSIS Private Patrol Operator (PPO) license and staffs unarmed officers only. We tell you that on the first call, before any quote.
Most Los Angeles work takes one of a few shapes: an officer standing at a door or gate, a lobby desk, patrol rounds across several properties at night, fire watch while a sprinkler or alarm system is down, or staff for an event. Plenty of clients use two of them, such as a daytime lobby officer and a night patrol.
Pick the service by the problem, not by its name. A garage with break-ins needs different coverage than a lobby with walk-in visitors, and a building that sits empty overnight needs different coverage than one full of residents.
A uniformed officer on a fixed post: a Downtown lobby, a Koreatown gate, a store entrance.
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Front-desk officers who sign in visitors, couriers and after-hours contractors.
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Patrol stops across several buildings overnight, with the time of each pass logged.
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Logged fire watch rounds while a sprinkler or fire alarm system is out of service.
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Night and weekend coverage for job sites, including rebuild lots in Pacific Palisades.
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Opening, closing and alarm checks for addresses LAPD will not visit without verification.
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Store coverage aimed at shoplifting and shrink, written up for police and insurers.
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Entry checks and crowd flow for private events, openings and nights near the stadiums.
↗The dispatch line answers 24/7. Call when a sprinkler system goes down, a tenant moves out and leaves a building empty, or a break-in means the property needs someone overnight. You get a plain answer about when an officer can start.
The City of Los Angeles is a patchwork of districts, and each one has its own security pattern. This is how the post usually differs from one part of the city to the next.
Financial District towers need lobby officers who check badges and sign in contractors after hours. Loft buildings in the Historic Core and the Arts District have alley doors, roof hatches and garage gates that residents prop open. In the Fashion District the exposure is stock: roll-up doors, loading zones and merchandise moved before sunrise. Post orders say what the officer does about people sleeping in doorways, and when to call the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).
Koreatown is one of the most densely populated parts of the city, packed with mid-rise apartment buildings over subterranean garages. The calls are garage break-ins, package theft and strangers tailgating through gates. Along Wilshire Boulevard and 6th Street, restaurants and bars stay open late and want a door officer on weekend nights.
Apartment security →Our office sits here, a few blocks from USC. Game and concert days at the Coliseum and BMO Stadium push crowds and parked cars onto nearby streets, and the Coliseum will share the opening ceremony of the 2028 Olympic Games. Storefronts, churches and clinics along Vermont, Figueroa and Western sit empty overnight, and a nightly lock-up check or patrol stop usually covers them.
Warehouses, truck yards and rail-side lots east of the Los Angeles River lose copper wire, pallets and catalytic converters at night. Farther north, shops along York Boulevard in Highland Park and Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock deal with smashed windows and after-hours trespass. Gate officers and patrol rounds do most of the work here.
Warehouse security →Office towers in Century City run lobby desks and parking structures that need an officer at the elevator core after hours. Westwood mixes student apartments with retail along Westwood Boulevard. In Brentwood and Bel Air, the work is residential: estates under renovation, construction crews coming and going, and owners away for weeks at a time.
The January 2025 Palisades Fire destroyed thousands of homes, and rebuilding has turned whole streets into construction sites and empty lots. Stolen materials, stripped wiring and trespass on burned parcels are the usual complaints. A night officer or patrol checks keep builders and returning owners from finding a site cleaned out in the morning.
Construction site security →The Port of Los Angeles, the busiest container port in the country, sits between these two neighborhoods. Outside the terminal gates, the truck yards, chassis lots and warehouses that serve the port need gate control and logged checks of containers and trailers parked overnight.
Hotels, parking operators and rental car lots along Century Boulevard handle a steady stream of travelers and strangers at every hour. Posts here are usually lobby coverage, parking lot patrols and a written record of vehicles left too long.
Hotel security →Our office is here in Los Angeles, at 1208 W Jefferson Blvd near Exposition Park. Other city pages close by, by straight-line distance:
Unarmed security guards in California generally bill at about $22 to $40 an hour on the open market. That range is published market data, not CAL Security Group's rate. Your price comes after a site walk, with each post listed on its own line.
Wage law sets the floor. The California minimum wage is $16.90 an hour in 2026, and the City of Los Angeles sets its own: $18.42 an hour since July 1, 2026. A guard's pay has to clear that local floor before the company adds payroll taxes, workers' compensation, liability insurance, training and supervision. At the open-market range, one night post of 84 hours a week comes to roughly $1,850 to $3,360 a week.
| What changes the price | How it shows up in a Los Angeles quote |
|---|---|
| Hours of coverage | A 24/7 post is 168 hours a week. A 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. night post is 84. Most savings come from covering only the hours when trouble actually happens. |
| Type of coverage | A standing officer bills by the hour. A patrol bills per visit or per route, shared across several properties. Fire watch bills by the hour until the system is restored. |
| Number of posts | One officer per door, gate or lobby that has to be watched at the same time. A garage and a front desk at the same hour means two posts. |
| Event days | Extra officers for game or concert nights near the Coliseum or Crypto.com Arena are priced as separate lines from the standing post. |
| Where the property sits | Inside city limits the minimum wage is $18.42. Pasadena and Santa Monica have their own local rates, and the state rate applies where no local one exists. |
More detail by property type is in our security guard cost guide.
A few city and state rules decide what a Los Angeles post looks like before the officer arrives.
The City of Los Angeles requires a permit for every alarm system, and each false alarm response is billed to the alarm user. After two false alarms within 365 days, LAPD puts the address on "broadcast and file" status: with no verification of a crime, the call goes out over the radio and an officer comes only if one is free. A patrol officer who answers the alarm closes that gap.
Alarm response →California Fire Code Section 901.7 calls for a fire watch or an evacuation when a required sprinkler system is out of service for more than 10 hours in 24, or a fire alarm system for more than 4 hours. Inside the city, the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) enforces it. The fire watch officer walks the building on a set route and logs every round.
Fire watch →Every security guard in California needs a BSIS guard card. That means fingerprints through the California Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI, 40 hours of training (8 before the card is issued, 16 within 30 days, 16 within 6 months) and 8 hours of refresher training every year.
A Private Patrol Operator must carry at least $1,000,000 in general liability coverage per occurrence under Business and Professions Code Section 7583.40, and keep proof on file with BSIS under Section 7583.39. Ask any company you are comparing for its certificate before the first shift.
To hire a security guard in Los Angeles, start with the address and the hours that worry you. The rest follows in this order.
Give us the address, what has been going wrong and the hours you need covered. We say which service fits, and which one would be a waste of money.
We walk it with you, after dark when the trouble happens after dark: gates, lighting, garage levels, alley doors and the spots where people get in.
The quote lists each post with its hours and rate. The post orders cover who may enter, how the officer handles trespass, and when to call LAPD or you.
The officer works the post orders, a supervisor checks the post without notice, and a written report reaches you after every shift.
CAL Security Group was founded by Chaudhry Younus, a U.S. Air Force veteran with 24 years in the security industry and a background in strategic planning and crisis management. The idea behind the company is simple: you should see, in writing, what the officer was told to do and what the officer did.
An office in the city. We work out of W Jefferson Blvd, not a call center in another state.
Post orders for your building. A Koreatown apartment gate and a Fashion District showroom get different instructions, briefed before the first shift.
A written report every shift. Officer name and guard card number, time on and off, each round with its time, every incident with the action taken.
Unannounced supervisor visits. Field supervisors check posts without warning, overnight as well as by day.
Licence and insurance in writing. Ask us for written proof of licence and insurance before the first shift.
Insurance on paper before day one. Your certificate of insurance arrives before the first shift.
Dates, times and what was taken or damaged tell us more about a Los Angeles property than the floor plan does.
Tell us the address, the hours you need covered and what has been going wrong, from a Downtown loft building to a lot in the Palisades rebuild. We will walk it and send a written quote broken out post by post.
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