BEIJING -- The Beijing Public Security Bureau has issued new regulations on the recruitment of security staff in hotels and restaurants to improve the image of its service sector.

The city has now 76,000 security staff, and many of them are migrant workers who have received little education or professional training.

The new regulations stipulate that all security staff hired by catering businesses should be over 18 with no criminal records and employers should report their security staffs' identity information to the bureau.

China's police force employs 1.7 million policemen. However, the current number of company security staff has exceeded 4 million, far outnumbering the police.

Police investigations have found some security staff are involved in thefts and brawls in hotels and restaurants. Some so-called security staff in the catering and entertainment businesses were no different to hatchet men in organized crime rings, said Gao Yu, deputy bureau chief.

The Beijing Public Security Bureau also requires all 200 catering businesses with an operational floor space of over 2,000 square meters in Beijing to install CCTV cameras at the entrance and inside the main hall, parking lots, cashier's desk, accounting office and elevators. The police has the right to study the tapes during an investigation.