Actually, moron, i’ve worked behind bars on three continents, and i’ve seen people exit those bars, both willingly and unwillingly, in a variety of different states. I’ve also been a customer in plenty of bars and nightclubs where the bouncers have needed to forcibly remove someone. I recognize that bouncers often need to get physical, and that once that moment arrives they need to do everything possible to “take it outside” as quickly and efficiently as possible, both for their own safety, and for the general peace and harmony of the establishment.
But that moment has most assuredly not arrived when you merely confront someone for possibly being in the wrong place. If your first action in such a situation is to “haul them out” without even trying to determine exactly what the situation is, and whether there might be an explanation for it, then you’re either a complete idiot, or you’re a sadist who took the job specifically so he could legally manhandle and beat people.
I guess that shouldn’t surprise me.
I wouldn’t know. I’ve never done anything stupid enough to require my ejection. Maybe you can tell me what it’s like.
Oh, it really has to be experienced - I can hardly wait til you experience this continent.
My skipped over point was that I was thrown out unreasonably and I wasn’t allowed to explain. It’s a common experience, regardless of your triple-ace all-continent knowledge.
eta: and seriously, you chop up my 2 tiny paragraph post to reply to each sentence? Fucking lame.
I’m well aware that it’s pretty common. Hence my earlier suggestions that a lot of bouncers are morons.
The question for this thread, though, is not whether it’s common; it’s whether it’s right.
Furthermore, there has been no suggestion that the woman in question ever did anything other than simply be in the women’s bathroom; she wasn’t causing trouble, she wasn’t being loud or obnoxious to other patrons, etc. There’s no evidence that she caused the bouncer any trouble or made any move to disobey or challenge him. In such circumstances, the bouncer fucked up completely.
Actually, the question for this thread is whether this is a properly or usefully actionable event. You know, it’s that whole “Goddamn fucking right she should sue” thing. Bouncers being commonly found to be morons would tend to take away from the sue-abilty, IMHO.
Oh please. Have you ever rousted a drunk? Ever been in a fist fight? Ever pulled a guy away from a trunk because he was about to pull a jack handle out of it?
You’re stupid if you think bouncers are waiting to patiently judge the situation. They are there to keep trouble makers out and the booze flowing. If you spent a night in a rough club with the attitude that you’re going to listen to every sob story from some pervert, drunk or racist looking for a fight can come up with you’d end up sifting through your shit the next day to find your teeth. It’s a bad deal, what happened to that lady but injustices happen all the time. She deserves an apology and a free dinner. Not a one way lawsuit to easy street.
Because you aren’t smart enough to model the situation effectively you whine and pule. Grow up you silly bitch.
I never said that she deserved a whole shit-load of money. If you can find where i did, i’ll happily retract the comment.
But whether or not YOU were smart enough to actually evaluate the situations you were confronted with as a bouncer doesn’t actually mean that some bouncers aren’t intelligent enough to do so. Because NOT doing so can, in the end, actually make your life harder.
Take the example in question. It would have taken the bouncer less time and effort to do the rational thing—look at her ID and see that she was a woman—than to march her back through the restaurant, wait for her and her whole party to pay, and then escort her to the door. If you’re in an establishment that has frequent problems, the amount of time you spend dealing with one issue can prevent you from responding properly to another.
And whether she looks like a guy or not, there is also the question of whether she seemed like an actual threat. Most good bouncers i’ve known make very clear that a key part of their job is an ability to sum up very quickly who is likely to be trouble, and who isn’t. They know, by the way people carry themselves and the way they act and their state of intoxication, whether those people can handle themselves in a fight, and whether they are likely to get physical.
Even if the person in question had actually been a guy (she wasn’t), there was still never indication that this situation called for anything more than a “What the hell’s going on here? Get the fuck out of the women’s bathroom.”
Sorry moron, it’s you who’s the fucking idiot with no sense of proportion.
Proving that non-bouncers and former bouncers can also be dribbling idiots. Congratulations. I’m sure your parents are as proud as any brother-sister couple can be.
I’m not sure why you’re throwing that back in my face now, considering that the only reason i raised it in the first place is your own assertion that i “couldn’t recognize a normal bar room extraction if it got thrown right past you.” I was merely pointing out that i do, in fact, have some experience that you believed i lacked.
If you make assertions in ignorance (something i’m sure you have plenty of experience with), you shouldn’t get whiny when your ignorance is exposed.
One has to recognize different degrees and different situations. Obviously one isn’t going to stand there and allow oneself to be attacked; who would?
The simple act of confronting a person who may be in the wrong bathroom, possibly entirely by innocent accident, (knowing how drunk some folks can be) should not normally be a life-and-death situation. Despite the lurid tales of both bar patrons and bouncers, I reckon bouncers have far more mundane confrontations along the lines of general crowd control and reminders of the rules. Accusing someone of breaking a club rule that is dire enough to get them tossed, and then pointedly not allowing them any opportunity to prove that they are in fact innocent, is not only silly and unfair, it’s bad for business. It’s escalating or creating a conflict that did not exist in the first place.
I nowhere asserted I knew best about bar management or the best way to throw out people. I asserted that confronting someone with an accusation when there is no outstanding indication of violence or crime, and deliberately not allowing them the opportunity to de-escalate the situation is almost oppositional-defiant in its lack of logic. And thus far, I have not seen any response which makes me change my opinion at this point.
As I said, if you get a complaint that some dude is using the women’s room, open the door and you honestly believe the person standing there is a dude, I wouldn’t listen to any of his guff. Or perhaps I would, I’d need to be in the situation.
Remember a man in a woman’s restroom could be a pervert looking to jerk off on the seats, a peep, a rapist or maybe an honest mistake. If someone you’re *sure *is a man is standing there saying he’s a woman, in the woman’s restroom, can’t you see that sounds like the sort of bullshit lie people tell? I’m not saying I would be unnecessarily rude, but if I was sure I caught a man red handed in the women’s room I’d put in the realm of possibility punting the fella without having a conversation about why he’s in there.
I’d like to talk about this statement alone for a moment, as it is one of the places where this issue boils down to a something that I believe society is currently both equipped and obligated to reconcile.
The likelihood and inherent risks associated with proprietors/employees encountering someone of the correctly perceived gender/sex with malicious/threatening/inappropriate intentions in the inappropriate rest room.
vs
The likelihood and inherent risks associate with proprietors/employees encountering someone of either ambiguous gender or incorrectly perceived gender/sex with unmalicious/unthreatening/appropriate intentions in the appropriate rest room.
Any Sociology grad students reading who need a thesis?
I’m (as you can guess) of the opinion that measures can and should be taken by individuals, businesses, the justice system, and the government to take steps to improve society’s ability to discern between these situations (public awareness, legal consequences for lack of awareness) and/or take steps to prevent anyone from having to discern between these two situations (e.g. unisex bathrooms), wherein the issue becomes how to determine if an individual of any gender presentation is in a generic restroom facility with malicious/threatening/inappropriate intentions.
Here’s where you hit the brick wall. You’re putting (or would put, if given the opportunity) the onus on the government, at what ever level is appropriate, to educate people about an issue that effects less than 1% OF 1% of it’s citizens?
That’s lofty, considering there are still warnings on the packaging about not using one’s hairdryer while in the bathtub. Seriously, we can’t get smart people to stop doing stupid things. We are easily several generations away from keeping the dumb ones (not looking at you, bouncer guy, just saying) from doing dumb things.
If by “effects” you mean “potentially violates the civil rights of” and if by “less than 1% OF 1% of it’s citizens” you mean “an under-reported and increasing percentage of the population”, I would agree.
