The Abridged version:
The city of Sacramento is working with a private security company to add 24/7 security personnel in Lavender Heights.
The effort is in response to a pair of violent incidents that occurred in Sacramento’s historic LGBTQ+ hub over the last month.
A new group of volunteers is also walking the neighborhood to help people get home safely after visiting the bars.
With a recent string of violence shaking Sacramento’s historic hub for the LGBTQ+ community, city leaders and volunteers alike are looking for ways to make Lavender Heights safer.
The city of Sacramento is working with a private security company, HQ Security, to add more security personnel in the neighborhood, Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty announced Monday morning.
HQ Security will be adding at least four security cars that will patrol Lavender Heights around the clock, according to CEO Aaron Zeff. The company plans to keep the patrols in place for the next six months.
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Zeff said that his company already provides patrols to businesses in the central city and that he will be adding the additional patrols in Lavender Heights free to the city.
McCarty added that the city currently does not have enough resources in its Police Department to add more patrols to Lavender Heights.
“We had a really unfortunate incident here a couple of weeks ago, and we’d like to think that’s an isolated incident,” McCarty said. “Most nights, it is very, very safe here. But, it can always be safer.”
A security guard watches over a press conference outside Faces Nightclub in the Lavender Heights neighborhood of Sacramento on Sept. 21, 2026. Martin Christian
The extra patrols are being added in the wake of two violent incidents that occurred over the last month. On Aug. 30, a local LGBTQ+ advocate and Sacramento City Hall staffer was attacked in Lavender Heights. The Police Department is investigating the attack as a hate crime.
The following weekend, during which people celebrated the Sacramento Rainbow Festival, two people were attacked outside of Badlands in the early hours of Sept. 7.
Both attacks happened less than a year after a gay man, Alvin Prasad, was attacked in a hate crime incident on Halloween weekend. Prasad was placed in a coma after the attack and later died.
“Be aware of your surroundings. … Don’t go walking home alone,” said Terry Sidie, the longtime owner of Faces Nightclub. “There are people who will try to hurt you at times; take care of yourself.”
From left, Terry Sidie, owner of Faces Nightclub, and TJ Bruce, owner of Badlands and The Depot, attend a press conference in the Lavender Heights neighborhood in Sacramento on Sept. 21, 2026. (Martin Christian)
Demographics changing in Lavender Heights?
Sidie admitted that he has gay customers who joke that there are “too many straight people” at the nightclub.
The city’s LGBTQ+ business owners have seen the demographics of Lavender Heights change dramatically over the years.
“In my day when we were coming out, you didn’t have anywhere to go,” said Fred Palmer, executive director of the Sacramento Rainbow Chamber of Commerce.
“You had to go to the bars, or the community center, or go get HIV tested, and then you’d have an outlet to meet some folks that were in your community,” Palmer said.
Fred Palmer, the founder of Outword Magazine, an LGBTQ+ publication based in Sacramento, attends a press conference in the Lavender Heights neighborhood of Sacramento on Sept. 21, 2026. Martin Christian
Lavender Heights sees more people from all walks of life, Palmer said, plus the local LGBTQ+ community has expanded for people with a larger variety of needs. He voiced optimism about the variety of people coming together to make the neighborhood safer, between the mayor’s office and local business owners.
“There’s so many of us that are on edge,” Palmer said. “We need to have some sort of security and ownership to make sure our community is safe.”
The change in demographics has also been visible to Tonia Tong, who has provided security for Faces for the last five years. Tong owns local security company Securing Communities.
“The percentage of straight people here, this whole time, is growing,” Tong said.
“I still get people asking here like, is this a straight club or is a gay club? And I go, it’s a gay club, and you need to go inside because it’s poppin,’” Tong said.
She said that dynamic requires her team to keep an extra eye out for sexual harassment and making sure that teams are keeping a close eye on people while they wait for their rideshares to arrive.
Volunteers patrol the neighborhood
Some corners of Lavender Heights have been quieter since the recent attacks have shaken the neighborhood.
The karaoke night at Teneral Cellars saw its number of patrons drop from its usual 75 people down to about 25 people last week, said Zachary Basler, vice president of the Stonewall Democrats of Greater Sacramento.
Seeing that fear was part of the reason that spurred his group to begin organizing the Lavender Heights Community Patrol.
On recent weekends, the patrol has sent out sets of volunteers clad in purple safety vests to help people get home safely and to keep an eye out for violence in the neighborhood.
“Queers have been policing their own communities for years for safety, so this isn’t anything new,” Basler said.
The group has grown to 62 volunteers. Since the group began appearing on the streets a couple of weeks ago, there have been no reports of hate crimes, Basler said.