I’ve been in groups that got bounced out, but was never the inspiration. Most memorable was with a friend who worked in banking in NYC, we went out with a bunch of his coworkers, it was much closer to “Wolf of Wall Street” than I was prepared for.
So who got fired over that?
Some states did the grandfather clause and some didn’t. In December of 1983 I was newly 21 and my roommate was still 20. We drove from San Diego to Dallas for the Cotton Bowl. We drove back in January. California was 21 anyway. As I recall, it was illegal for him to drink in Texas on January 1st but not in Arizona.
I was at a bachelor party once, and we got ejected from a strip club because the groom got liquored up and loose from his minders, and clambered up on stage with a $20 in his teeth and slapped the dancer on the behind. Nothing I did, but the whole group was summarily booted.
Otherwise, we’ve usually self-bounced when things started getting weird.
I will say that going drinking in the UK was quite the experience. Here in the US, bouncers tend to be very big and/or very tough looking. Like 6’5" 250 lb solid muscle type huge. I’m a hair under 6’1", and while I’m burly, I’m not huge.
But in the UK, I was the size of the bouncers or larger in many cases, and it was kind of unnerving to notice them eyeing me and sizing me up as if they might have to bounce me.
I got thrown out of the Library of Congress at closing time. Gently, of course.
I had a similar thing happen to me in Tokyo when a bar wouldn’t even let me in to begin with basically because I was white. They didn’t bother saying the bar was members-only. They said the bar was Japanese-only.
I was pretty bothered at the time but later I realized I was reacting based on US laws and customs and, guess what? I wasn’t in the US anymore.
When in Rome…
I knew it was because the stupid grunts ruined it for the rest of us. I knew I wasn’t going to cause trouble but they didn’t know it.
I was refused admission (once) or service (one other time) because in somebody’s view, I was obviously already impaired though in fact I was completely sober both times (in the latter case, sober enough to immediately write a Yelp review without any vitiating errors of spelling, grammar, or usage). The latter time was perhaps technically a bounce although there was no physicality.
I didn’t come here, and I ain’t leavin’!
As comedian Ron White famously told about his departing a bar in NYC (as best I can recall his exact words):
I didn’t know how many guys it was gonna take to kick my ass. … I only knew how many they were gonna use.
That there is some darn handy information to have.
Not quite the the same kind of thing, but was great fun nonetheless…
When I was 4, my brother and I managed to get my mom’s entire softball team kicked out of Pizza Hut.
It was after a game and everyone was enjoying a pizza dinner, with three or so park-bench-style tables end-to-end and sawdust on the floor.
Someone must have been goofing around and dropped ice down someone else’s shirt, at which point my 6yo brother saw that and decided we ought to join in on the fun. And it was great mayhem, with us grabbing fistfuls of ice from the pitchers on the table and stuffing it down the backs of everyone we could find.
Except, we didn’t distinguish between softball players and random guests enjoying pizza with their families. We didn’t know any better. By the time things came to a head, the whole restaurant was in an uproar, looking like a food fight in progress, except it was ice.
I don’t remember any of the details of getting shown the door–at my age it was surely just yet another “the adults are going out, time to follow them” moment. But when my mom told the story years later, I didn’t doubt for a minute that we got the team ejected: I would not be happy if some random bratty kid came up to me in a restaurant and stuffed ice down my shirt!
I’ve always looked really young for my age. I was 21 when I came back from Vietnam and couldn’t wait to be carded somewhere. I went to a liquor store while on leave and put a jug of whiskey on the counter, fully expecting to be carded. The guy glanced at me and took my money. I was so disappointed.
The only time I’ve ever been asked to leave a bar was in Washington, DC. The bartender got pissed because I was jokingly teasing him about his lack of voting Congressional representation. True story.
Not quite on-point but close. …
Back when I was young 20s I was out with a similar co-worker. We were dining at some random Mom 'n Pop Chinese joint. During the drink order my co-worker made a sorta suggestive sorta off color remark to the ~17yo ethnic Chinese waitress whose English was seemingly limited. He meant for us to enjoy the comment with her not understanding. Oops.
She understood it just fine and suddenly her probably 25ish older brother and 40-something Dad came out of the kitchen well equipped with sharp kitchen tools. We took the hint and departed unserved. Post haste.
Very appropriate for this thread. Later in the story he’s arrested for public drunkeness. His defense:
I didn’t want to be drunk in public. I wanted to be drunk in a BAR. I was THROWN into public.
Reminds me of this Lowering the Bar classic:
I just love that whole routine. But that line is the killer!
I’m sure you have plenty of stories of drunk & disorderly calls, or whatever the NJ penal code calls it. In the bar or in pubbbb-LICKKKK!! But I bet they were all a tiresome PITA from your end of the situation.
In New Jersey you can be as drunk as you want in public. No public drunkenness statute. Of course you can’t drive or be disorderly but just the act of being intoxicated in public is not illegal.
How … sensible.
Some drunks have a hard time being unobjectionable in public but I suppose most are happy enough to just stagger home or fall asleep in the bushes.
I was thrown out of pretty much every bar within 50 miles of me at one time or another in my drinking days, either for drinking too much or nearly getting into/getting into fights. I wasn’t an aggressive drunk but I didn’t back down, either.
Not that I’m proud of any of that, but yes, I was tossed from many bars.
In the late '80s, my brother and I went to a joint bachelor party for two friends of ours from college, two guys who were getting married a couple of weeks apart. They kindly agreed to have a combined party since our friend group (a) had really scattered to the four winds in the dozen or so years after college, and (b) one of the friend group was a nuclear something something officer on a sub and would only be on leave for a very small window. We ended up in a gentlemen’s club we used to frequent in our college days, and after being there a few hours, one of the guests of honor started eating a part of an entertainer’s outfit that she had recently shed. It was actually pretty disgusting to witness, and one of the bouncers figured he’d seen enough, and told us we had to leave. Fortunately, Alan was a happy drunk and not a belligerent drunk, and we peacefully made our way to the hotel where we were staying and we each passed out all over the suite.