Security guard services in Santa Monica for beachfront hotels, shops on the Third Street Promenade and Main Street, Silicon Beach offices and older apartment buildings, with unarmed officers licensed by the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services (BSIS) on every post.
Santa Monica fits a beach town, a shopping district, an office market and 90,000-odd residents into roughly eight square miles. Security work here follows the hour more than the address. Retail theft happens in daylight, the pier and beach edge get busy at night, and apartment garages three blocks inland are quiet until 2 a.m.
The city's own figures show which way things are moving. The Santa Monica Police Department (SMPD) recorded 4,194 Part I crimes in 2025, down 12.5 percent from 4,793 in 2024, in its 2025 annual crime report. A falling citywide number still leaves a single store, garage or lobby with its own pattern, which is what the post orders are written from.
Every officer we send holds a guard card from the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services (BSIS), and CAL Security Group holds a BSIS Private Patrol Operator (PPO) licence. We staff unarmed officers only, and we say that before quoting rather than after.
Six posts cover most of the work in this city. Each one is priced on its own line, so a hotel lobby and a garage patrol never get bundled into a single number.
A uniformed officer at the door slows walk-out theft on the Promenade and Main Street, and the write-up gives police and your insurer something usable: time, description, what left the store, which exit.
Loss prevention →Ocean Avenue and Downtown hotels use a night officer at the front desk and the garage entrance: guests and non-guests sorted out, wristband and room-key checks at the pool, and a call log the manager reads in the morning.
Hotel security →Rent-controlled courtyard buildings and newer condo towers lose the same things: packages, bicycles, catalytic converters. Officers work the garage levels and watch that vehicle gates close fully behind each car.
Apartment security →Creative and tech offices near Olympic Boulevard and Bergamot run a lobby desk: visitor sign-in, courier drop-offs, contractor escorts after hours, and badge checks at the elevator core.
Reception security →An empty retail space or a job site behind plywood draws copper theft, tagging and people getting in through the back. Night officers or logged patrol stops keep it from becoming a weekly problem.
Construction site security →Hotel ballrooms, beach-side private events and street festivals need entry checks and crowd flow. Separately, a fire watch covers a sprinkler or alarm outage, and an officer can answer alarm calls with your keys and codes.
Event security →The city has three named shopping districts and a string of distinct corridors. Each one hands the officer a different job.
Daylight theft and closing-time crowds set the schedule. The Metro E Line ends at Downtown Santa Monica Station on 4th Street at Colorado Avenue, a block from the Promenade, so foot traffic keeps arriving and leaving until late. Officers work store entrances, the parking structures and the alley doors behind them.
Tourist volume by day, an empty edge after dark. The work is visitors who stay past closing, vehicles left overnight in beach lots, and the back doors of restaurants along Ocean Avenue. Hotel posts here run through the night.
Small storefronts, patios and bars mean noise complaints, cut-through foot traffic and late-night cleanup. A single officer can cover several addresses on foot when the businesses share the cost.
Ten blocks of boutiques between 10th and 17th streets, nearly all glass frontage, trading in daylight hours. Smash-and-grab and walk-out theft are the exposure, so the post is usually a daytime officer who knows the block and its staff.
Santa Monica College sits at 1900 Pico Boulevard, surrounded by student housing, small shops and light industrial yards. Car break-ins and overnight trespass on fenced lots are the usual calls, which patrol rounds handle better than a fixed post.
Galleries, studios and creative offices with loading doors, roll-up gates and shared garages. Coverage here is access control during the day and a locked-down perimeter at night, with contractors signed in and out.
Office security →Santa Monica is about 11 miles west of our office at 1208 W Jefferson Blvd in Los Angeles. Other city pages close by, by straight-line distance:
The code is blunt about response: nothing in it creates a duty for SMPD to answer an alarm, and alarms are handled within the resources the department has at that moment. An officer holding your keys and codes can reach the property first, walk the doors and windows, cancel what turns out to be a faulty sensor, and call police when the entry is real. That is what keeps a building off the nonresponse list.
Unarmed security guards in California bill at about $22 to $40 an hour on the open market, and Santa Monica sits at the top of that band for one specific reason: the city runs two wage floors, and one of them is far above the state's $16.90.
The citywide minimum wage is $18.47 an hour as of July 1, 2026. The hotel rate is $25.00 an hour, and the ordinance covers businesses that contract, lease or provide services on hotel property, which includes a contract security officer standing in a hotel lobby. The same officer costs more on hotel property than in a shop two streets inland, and any company quoting you the same rate for both has not read the ordinance.
| Where the post sits | Wage floor under the officer | Effect on the quote |
|---|---|---|
| Shop, office, garage or apartment inside Santa Monica | $18.47 an hour, city minimum wage since July 1, 2026 | Higher than a post in a city that follows the $16.90 state rate |
| A hotel, or a business operating on hotel property | $25.00 an hour, Santa Monica hotel worker rate since July 1, 2026 | The highest floor in the city, and it applies to contracted officers on that property |
| Venice, Brentwood or Pacific Palisades, a short drive away | $18.42 an hour, City of Los Angeles rate | Close to the Santa Monica rate, so a shared patrol route crossing the line prices evenly |
Those are wage floors, not our rates. Hours set the rest: a 24/7 post is 168 hours a week, a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. post is 84, and a patrol route shared with other buildings bills per visit instead of per hour. Our security guard cost guide breaks the ranges down by property type.
Founded by Chaudhry Younus, a U.S. Air Force veteran with 24 years in the security industry. The company runs on one idea: you should be able to read what the officer was told to do, and what the officer did.
A Promenade store and a Montana Avenue boutique get different instructions: who may enter, what the officer does about theft, and when SMPD gets called.
Officer name and guard card number, time on and off, each patrol round with its time, and every incident with the action taken.
Field supervisors turn up at posts unannounced, including overnight, which is when a quiet post is easiest to fake.
Fingerprints through the California Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI, 40 hours of BSIS training, and 8 hours of refresher training each year.
Proof of licence and insurance comes to you in writing before the first shift.
California requires a patrol operator to carry $1,000,000 in general liability per occurrence. Your certificate arrives before the first shift, not after a claim.
Most Santa Monica problems show up at closing or after midnight. Walk the property then and the post orders write themselves.
Tell us about the hotel, the storefront, the office floor or the apartment garage, and the hours that cause trouble. We will walk the site with you and send a written quote for each post.
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