La Mesa, CA Building Safety: Door Locking Hardware (2026)

Chapter 14.07, the city's Security Ordinance, sets minimum hardware standards administered by the Director of Building Inspection and Housing under Section 14.07.030. For detached dwellings, Section 14.07.040 requires exterior doors and doors leading from garages into single-family homes to be solid core per the 1976 Uniform Building Code, and to carry deadbolts in addition to deadlocking latches, both released by a single action of the interior knob unless the Building Official approves an equally secure alternate device. The same section requires non-removable hinge pins on out-swinging doors, rabbited jambs on in-swinging doors, burglary-resistant vision panels, mail slots no larger than 24 square inches with interior knob protection if within 3 feet of a lock, and flush extension bolts with a three-quarter-inch throw on the inactive leaf of double doors.

Section 14.07.050 separately requires sliding patio doors to have a keyed, pin-tumbler dead lock with inaccessible mounting screws and a bolt able to withstand 800 pounds of force, and Section 14.07.060 requires overhead or accordion garage doors without electric power to be secured with a cylinder lock, padlock, or slide bolt using non-removable exterior fasteners. Section 14.07.070 requires ground-level windows to be lockable so they cannot be lifted from the frame and to resist 300 pounds of force, and bars louvered windows outright. Multifamily buildings, hotels, motels, and apartments face parallel deadbolt, self-closing, and key-box rules under Sections 14.07.100 through 14.07.140, and non-residential buildings face separate double-cylinder deadbolt and door-glazing standards under Sections 14.07.180 and 14.07.190.

Appeals go to the board established under Section 204 of the 1976 Uniform Building Code, sitting as the board of appeals for the Security Ordinance under Section 14.07.230.