In-store plain-clothes LP
BSP-licensed officers integrated into the store as plain-clothes loss prevention — surveillance, lawful detention, evidence preservation and police liaison.
Montreal · Laval · Brossard · BSP licensed
Loss Prevention Montreal
BSP-licensed plain-clothes and uniformed loss prevention officers for retail, malls and big-box stores across greater Montreal — court-ready documentation, police liaison and 24/7 dispatch.
Call our Montréal team514-279-7209- BSP licence GAR 20062877
- $5M Insurance
- 24/7
Why Montreal businesses need real security
Loss prevention in Montreal retail is unforgiving. Wrongful-detention complaints, organized retail theft, bilingual customer interactions and Quebec's specific privacy and arrest rules all demand officers who know what they're doing. Generic guards in plain clothes won't cut it. Vision Security runs LP programs for retail and shopping-centre clients across the metro area. Our officers are picked and trained for this role.
Our LP officers are BSP-licensed and bilingual. They are trained on lawful detention, Quebec arrest rules, court-ready documentation, evidence preservation and SPVM liaison. Reports are written the same shift, formatted to a standard that holds up if a file proceeds to charge. We work with retailers across Montreal: Sainte-Catherine flagship stores, Place Ste-Foy, Carrefour Laval, Carrefour Angrignon, Quartier Cavendish, Mail Champlain, Promenades St-Bruno and big-box clusters in Lachine and Anjou.
We offer two main models. The first is in-store LP — plain-clothes officers built into the store team. The second is contracted LP — rotating officers covering multiple sites on a published schedule. Both come with monthly analytics: theft incident counts, recovery values, conviction rates and patterns by location, day-part and item category. The data is what lets retail management actually move the needle on shrink — not just report on it after the fact.
What's included
Uniformed retail security
Visible uniformed officers as deterrent presence at store entries, point of sale and parking lots — for stores where uniformed coverage works better than covert.
Mall & shopping centre LP
Rotating LP officers covering multiple stores within a mall or power centre — coordinated with mall operations and centre security.
Court-ready documentation
Incident reports written the same shift to a standard that holds up if a file proceeds to charge — narrative, evidence preservation, witness statements, video reference.
Investigations & internal theft
Targeted investigation of internal theft, sweethearting and discount fraud — covert observation, transaction analysis, interview support.
ORC (organized retail crime) response
Coordinated response to organized retail theft crews operating across multiple locations — pattern analysis, multi-store collaboration, SPVM liaison.
Police liaison & charge support
On-site SPVM coordination, statement provision, evidence handover and follow-up cooperation through to court appearances when required.
Monthly analytics & reporting
Theft incident counts, recovery values, conviction rates, time-of-day patterns, item-category patterns — formatted for retail operations and asset protection leadership.
Industries we serve
Flagship retail
Sainte-Catherine flagship stores, downtown department stores, and luxury retail in Old Montreal and Westmount.
Shopping centres & malls
Place Ste-Foy, Carrefour Laval, Carrefour Angrignon, Mail Champlain, Quartier Cavendish, Promenades St-Bruno.
Big-box retail
Big-box stores across Lachine, Anjou, Saint-Léonard, Brossard and Laval — high-volume, organized-theft-prone.
Specialty retail
Apparel, beauty, electronics, optical and pharmacy retail with high-shrink categories.
Grocery & convenience
Supermarkets and convenience chains needing rotating LP coverage at high-risk locations.
Liquor & cannabis retail
SAQ-area locations and cannabis retail (where applicable) with specific compliance and theft-pattern needs.
Outlet centres & power centres
Outlet locations and big-box power centres requiring centre-wide LP programs.
Multi-location chains
Regional and national retailers running multiple Montreal-area locations needing coordinated LP across the metropolitan area.
Montreal neighbourhoods & areas served
- Downtown Montreal
- Old Montreal & Old Port
- Plateau-Mont-Royal
- Griffintown
- Mile End
- Westmount
- Outremont
- Saint-Laurent
- Verdun & LaSalle
- Côte-des-Neiges & NDG
- Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie
- Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
- Anjou & Saint-Léonard
- Laval
- Longueuil & the South Shore
- Brossard & Boucherville
- West Island (Pointe-Claire, Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Kirkland)
Licensing & compliance
Every loss prevention officer Vision Security deploys in Montreal holds an active permis d'agent de sécurité from the Bureau de la sécurité privée du Québec, and is trained on the specific Quebec rules around lawful detention, arrest by a private person under the Criminal Code, evidence handling and SPVM coordination. Vision Security holds the corporate BSP agency licence.
Insurance & trust
Vision Security carries $5,000,000 commercial general liability and full CNESST coverage in Quebec — including coverage for retail loss prevention activity, which not all security agencies actually carry. Certificates naming the retailer or shopping centre operator are issued within one business day.
Emergency availability
Urgent staffing: Typically within 1 hour anywhere on the island for short-notice LP coverage
When a retail location experiences a sudden organized-theft surge or a key LP officer is unavailable, our 24/7 Montreal dispatch can place a BSP-licensed LP officer typically within 1 hour. Coordinated multi-store responses are also available for organized retail crime patterns.
Frequently asked questions
Do your LP officers hold BSP licences?
Yes. Every loss prevention officer holds an active permis d'agent de sécurité from the Bureau de la sécurité privée du Québec. Quebec law does not allow loss prevention to be performed by anyone unlicensed.
Are your LP officers bilingual?
Yes. Every LP officer we deploy in Montreal is bilingual French-English. This matters specifically in the moment of detention — Quebec law requires a private person making an arrest to communicate clearly with the suspect.
Are your reports court-ready?
Yes. LP incident reports are written the same shift to a standard that holds up if a file proceeds to charge — narrative, evidence preservation, witness statements, video reference. Officers are also trained to give clean SPVM statements at the scene.
Plain-clothes or uniformed LP — which works better?
It depends on store traffic, theft pattern and staff layout. High-shrink stores with organized theft typically benefit from plain-clothes coverage. Stores with high impulse theft or vandalism often benefit from uniformed deterrent presence. We frequently recommend a hybrid — uniformed at the entrance, plain-clothes on the floor.
Do you handle organized retail crime (ORC)?
Yes. We coordinate ORC responses across multiple stores in the same chain or shopping centre — pattern analysis, multi-store collaboration, SPVM liaison and shared incident documentation. ORC is one of the fastest-growing parts of Montreal-area retail risk and we treat it as a discipline, not an ad-hoc response.
How much does loss prevention cost in Montreal?
LP officer rates in Montreal typically run $30–$45 per hour for plain-clothes work. Multi-store contracts and mall-wide programs are priced as monthly contracts with volume pricing. We provide written quotes for every program.
Do you cover Laval, Brossard and the South Shore?
Yes. We cover the full greater Montreal area: the island, Laval, Longueuil, Brossard, Boucherville, Saint-Hubert, the West Island and the rest of the South Shore. Multi-location chains across the metropolitan area are a core part of our retail business.
Do you provide monthly analytics?
Yes. Every LP program comes with monthly analytics: incident counts, recovery values, conviction rates, time-of-day patterns and category breakdowns. The data is what lets retail leadership move the needle on shrink, not just report on it.
The risk of hiring the cheapest security agency
When a bid comes in well below market, the savings are usually being generated somewhere illegitimate. The most common shortcuts:
- Unlicensed guards. Officers without active provincial licences working under another guard's name. If anything goes wrong on site, the legal liability lands on the client.
- Insurance gaps. COIs that look real but expire mid-contract, or commercial general liability limits well below what a prudent property owner would accept.
- No supervision. No site visits, no log reviews, no named supervisor. Officers go ungoverned and post orders quietly stop being followed.
- Cash-only payroll. Officers paid under-the-table without WSIB or CNESST coverage — illegal and a direct liability transfer to the client if an officer is injured.
- National call-centre dispatch. Overnight calls go to a generic answering service that just takes a message. By the time anyone responds, the situation has escalated.
Ask any agency for: agency licence number, $5M COI naming you, training records, supervisor schedule and a 24/7 dispatch number that rings to a real person. If they can't produce all five, walk away.
Other security services in Montreal
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Reduce shrink with a real loss prevention program
Send us your locations, current shrink figures and any theft patterns you're seeing. You'll get a written LP program proposal and quote within 24 hours — backed by BSP-licensed officers, court-ready documentation and 24/7 dispatch.
Call our Montréal team514-279-7209