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.
- BSP — Bureau de la sécurité privée
- $5M Insurance
- 24/7
Why Montreal businesses need real security
Loss prevention in Montreal retail is a discipline that punishes amateurs. Wrongful-detention complaints, escalating organized retail theft, bilingual customer interactions and Quebec's specific privacy and arrest-rules framework all demand officers who actually know what they're doing — not generic guards walking the floor in plain clothes. Vision Security runs loss prevention programs for retail and shopping centre clients across the metropolitan area, with officers selected and trained specifically for the role.
Our LP officers are BSP-licensed, bilingual, and trained on lawful detention, arrest-rules in Quebec, 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 work two main models: in-store LP (plain-clothes officers integrated into the store team) and contracted LP (rotating LP officers covering multiple locations on a published schedule). Both come with monthly analytics: theft incident counts, recovery values, conviction rates, and patterns broken down 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
Response time: Under one 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 same-day in most cases. Coordinated multi-store responses are also available for organized retail crime patterns.
Frequently asked questions
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
Also available in
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 in under one business day — backed by BSP-licensed officers, court-ready documentation and 24/7 dispatch.