West Covina, CA Privacy & Surveillance: License Plate Readers (2026)

Section 26-109(b) governs service stations that want a conditional use permit to sell beer and wine for off-premises consumption; distilled spirits sales at service stations are not allowed at all. Subsection (b)(3) lists the operating conditions every qualifying gas station must meet, and item k requires a flock safety camera with license plate recognition that is integrated with the police department's system at every vehicle entry and exit point on the site. The requirement sits alongside a separate CCTV mandate in item j, which requires cameras covering the interior sales floor and the station's exterior, including all points of ingress and egress from the street.

Together, the two camera systems give the West Covina Police Department both general video surveillance and automated license plate capture at every station licensed to sell alcohol. The section does not set a public data-retention period or an information-sharing policy for the plate-reader data in the text of the ordinance; those operational details, if adopted, live outside this Development Code section. The camera condition sits among a dense set of other requirements the ordinance imposes on alcohol-selling gas stations: a 10 percent cap on retail floor area used to display alcohol, a ban on selling beer in quantities under three containers, a five-foot buffer between alcohol displays and the cash register or front door, mandatory age-verification ID readers, and a ban on video games or fee-based entertainment machines on the premises.

All of these conditions attach to the conditional use permit required under Sec. 26-109(b)(1), and the permit is subject to the city's standard conditional-use-permit review by the Community Development Department.