I bounced and then tended bar in a gay club, same thing but with the added component of more fights between partners. Try to stop one from hitting the other again only to be screamed at by the hit-ee “don’t you touch him/her!!”. 
If someone got in your face and called you a cocksucker, were you nice? Did you ask him to walk (nicely)? If he wouldn’t walk, did you walk him (nicely)? If you couldn’t walk him, did you ask someone else to help you (nicely)? Was this a job for you, or was it personal?
Finally, did you continue to be nice until it was time to not be nice?
Yes or no question: are there any aspects of what you did that you will not discuss?
I was going to ask “Does pain hurt?” but I thought better of it.
Do you have to worry about legal liability? Or is that all assumed by the bar and their insurance policy? Like if you have to forcibly tackle a guy who refuses to leave and remove him from the premises, and he serves you with a lawsuit… does that ever happen? Ever happened to you?
Ever had a bouncee come back the next day to start some shit when they were sober?
In my friends case the bar owner paid right out of pocket. He got his rib and nose broken by 5 bouncers at a bar we we’re at because they assumed he had stolen a glass and he refused to give it up. The glass was given to him at a shawarma joint right next door. As he was walking back, the bouncers told him to give up the glass, he said no it’s from the shawarma place go check with them.
They didn’t and proceeded in kicking his ass. He called the cops, got medical , statement from the shwarma owner and took them to court. My friend represented himself. Before the proceedings, the owner offered to cut him a check for 5K right there. He refused, judge found them guilty ended up getting a settlement for 12K.
- That sounds awful! I never had direct contact with blood or other bodily fluids. The main health risks I worried about were physical trauma and stress, specifically the effect of working in a potentially violent environment night after night. That is one of the major reasons that I stopped working in dance clubs after the first year. No longer personally concerned about any of the risks, since I haven’t bounced for a few years now.
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Sticks and stones, you know? It really depended on the situation, on the person’s size, posture and demeanor, on the number, posture and attitude of their friends, on the crowdedness of the place, etc.
Again, the best policy is always to get the person outside, away from other instigators, away from an audience, away from other potential fighters. Usually you start by asking politely.
If they refuse, I would usually give them another shot to save face by saying something like, “Listen carefully, my man. You can walk outside with me now, or you can keep bowing up. Your choice, but you are a few seconds away from six guys with stun guns and batons beating you down and dragging you out into the alley. Please walk outside with me and let’s talk about it.” A lot of times, the “please” seems to work wonders!
If someone is past the point of reason or becomes physical, the best thing to do (again, depending on the person) is spin them, pinion the arms with a big bear hug, lift them up, and start transporting towards the exit as fast as possible. The vast majority of the time, that’s all it takes! Sometimes, though, people would kick shins or try to head-butt backwards while being carried, in which case you could either try another warning or just go to ground with them and restrain them. -
It was totally a job for me. A friend asked me to help out at his club, and I realized it was a great way to make a decent amount of extra cash with minimal effort while working days or studying.
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I’d like to think I was the nicest bouncer ever.
I would rather not discuss the details of establishments I worked at or people I worked with, purely for privacy reasons.
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Never happened to me, but a guy who used to patronize one of the strip clubs began talking trash to one of the other bouncers repeatedly. Every time he came in, he would make a comment about how we would need more bouncers to take him out, or that none of us had ever seen a “real” fight, that he and his friends trained “cage fighting” style, etc. It was something of a joke for a couple of weeks, but one night, the manager on duty was in a seriously foul mood and happened to be by the front desk when the guy came in. He started in again with his repertoire of semi-threats and peacocking, and the manager (not the most ethical individual I have known) called a couple of the dancers into the front hall and poker-faced, quietly and firmly told the patron in front of everyone that he could have a choice: fight the head of security in the parking lot, right now, or leave and never come back. If he won the fight, or wasn’t knocked out or submitted in 3 minutes, he could come to the club for free and drink for free for a year. If he lost, he would stop coming. It was a total melodramatic moment, with the guy looking at the head of security, then at the dancers, then at the head of security. The manager (have I mentioned he was not the nicest guy) barked at him, “Don’t look at them, look at me - I’m making the deal - what are you gonna do?”
The guy mumbled back something about how we probably would all jump in and fight dirty. “Nobody is even going outside with you two,” the manager told him, “choose now.”
I think it was the presence of the strippers that forced the guy’s hand, but he said, way too loudly, with eyes just a little too wide to look confident, “Let’s do it!!”
The head of security, “Joe”, a 6’2, 250lb Golden Gloves champion and actual honest-to-goodness backyard fighter, was usually a really nice, calm guy. Capable as hell, funny, jolly, fun-loving. But I wouldn’t fight him without a gun, or maybe a flamethrower. He was in the habit of bringing a bowling pin to work with him, and would sit watching the crowd or texting at the front desk while he systematically beat himself in the shins and kneecaps with it “to condition the bones and nerves.” He got up and took his jacket off and walked out the front door without even looking at the patron.
The patron went outside, twenty strippers ran to peek out the tiny front windows, the manager and I went out the side door and watched from the corner. They squared off in the little patch of grass by the lot, the guy swung, Joe stepped inside, picked him up, and suplexed him. Joe stood up, and the guy stayed down. Joe went back inside and got his bowling pin and started texting again. The guy eventually got up and went to his car and drove away.
He came back the next night with a sling on his left arm for his broken clavicle. He wanted to talk to the manager. Both Joe and the manager were off, so he hung around the front desk telling me how he was talking to lawyers who had told him he was going to get the club shut down, put those guys in jail, etc. After a while, he left, and I called the manager. “I know this type of guy. He’s not going to do anything,” I was told, “forget about it.” And he was right! That was the last I ever heard about it. -
Never had anyone come back to try to fight when sober, but had a guy come in the night after I threw him out. He insisted on shaking hands, and made it very clear he was not apologizing, but that he was acknowledging that we had a “fair fight.”
That’s what I learned in my time in Security. Smile, be pleasant, be courteous and professional. For the vast majority of people trying to start shit, there’s nothing more unsettling than to see their target being unflappable and polite! Stops most situations cold right there because they are seeking to escalate the situation and find excuses to start shit, and you’re not giving it to them.
Plus I always liked the look of confusion and fear in their faces when they’d threaten me and I’d just give them a great big smile and continue being polite.
Good thread, thanks. Ever have to 86 a person who was just defending themselves in a fight? Where you knew the person was actually not doing anything wrong but they had to leave anyway? If so, did you speak to them on the way out?
How often did you actually get legitimate line cutters, or people who wouldn’t have to pay cover (e.g., owner’s friends or family) vs fakers?
Have you ever had let an unexpected stranger in for free?
Loved the “Joe” story, and cool idea for a thread.
Got any other “funny” stories, like maybe having to 86 someone who was “way out of their league”? Like maybe a drunk guy topping out at 140-lbs, who just kept pushing it and pushing it, while the only thing running through your head was “seriously man, seriously?” Any instances where ejecting someone took little to no physical effort on your part (aside from examples of “please walk outside with me” and they comply)?
Assuming you’re in the United States, do you get nervous about checking IDs from far away states? I moved from Arizona to Illinois, and I’m well over 21, yet my ID seems to get super scrutiny, I’m going to guess it because the expiration is 2034, Arizona licenses cost a fortune when they’re issued, but they don’t expire for a long time.
Did some bouncing myself. Did you find it as useful as I did to just give Mr. Angrypants a drink on the house? I’m not as big as you and given the choice between rolling in the mud and the blood and the beer or just giving some out of sorts mook a drink, I pretty regularly went with the drink.
Did anyone try to bribe you for anything?
-D/a
I’ve been working as a bouncer/doorman here in NYC for about 12 years. I’ll agree with just about everything mufatango has said.
- On quite a few occasions that I remember, I would throw both participants in a fight out, while quietly telling one of the guys involved to walk around the block and come back in ten minutes, if he still wanted to stay. Then again, I think I had a strange tendency of striving to maintain justice - most coworkers would simply throw out anyone they remotely suspected of involvement in a fight, while ignoring any protests. Much easier that way, much less drama.
- This depends on the establishment. Really popular clubs that have a line out front will have a “list guy,” and as Jack Carter says, nobody likes the list guy!
*** For me, one of the things that kept the job interesting and kept the tedium down to tolerable levels was that it affords you the opportunity to observe human social biology in a very unique setting. Nerdy as hell, I know. Probably not what you think is going through the mind of the security peeps, but many nights, I had an internal David Attenborough commenting on people’s behavior, actions, posture, etc. (“Oh dear! She’s rebuffed him! Nothing ventured, nothing gained, he decides, and with that, it’s back to displaying!”) Either that, or I would imagine Michael Sandel using a situation to start a thought experiment and poll the audience on their sense of justice.
That being said, I think the concept of the “list guy” is a huge violation of the line waiter’s expectations of justice, which is precisely what makes it so desirable and status-boosting for the person on the list. The same thing goes for clubs that have VIP areas. There’s almost nothing people hate more than being told “You’re not on the list,” or “You can’t go in there. VIP only,” once they’ve made the attempt.
So I always hated being the “list guy.” I vastly preferred acting as an impartial agent of the manager or the hostess, basically stepping aside or moving the rope or opening the door for someone when told to let them in.
- Once in a while I let a group of pretty girls into a club for free. Felt surprisingly bad about it afterwards, especially when I saw someone less glamorous in line look at me sadly afterwards - cognitive dissonance and all - but I am human! Bars with no cover and strip clubs were much easier. No “list,” and no exceptions to carding etc.