Watch your fellow bouncers backs

After the events of last Thursday night, my co-workers and i were all very excited and felt a little more confident to get into the mayhem if a problem arose.  Friday saw an increased crowd for the slowest night of the week which was a good accomplishment.  However what we all feared was the coming Saturday, usually the biggest night of the week and the finale of the clubs grand opening weekend.  We expected large crowds, but what we got was beyond our greatest nightmares.

Eleven p.m. most nights usually sees the club with about 25-40 people inside and a general calm before the storm kicks off.  On this particular night however we had already booked our two V.I.P. areas for bottle service and had a third customer come and request a V.I.P. area.  Due to this request we roped off a third spot on our mezzanine so we could serve three bottle service areas.  Each bottle service area requires its own bouncer, and because of this extra V.I.P. area we were quite short staffed and my manager hired on the spot a couple individuals who were in the club and well know to the owner and staff. 

So with several new bouncers and already more than 200 people inside by 11:15 pm, we began to fear the inevitable.  By midnight the number of people in the club was skyrocketing, and by 12:30 we had reached our 400 person capacity inside the club, and it had become an energetic party inside.  The patrons were having a great time and the music was right on cue with the crowd, people were dancing, everyone seemed happy and the temperature was literally rising despite an air conditioning system that was on full blast in the dead of winter.  However with the number of people in attendance, not only did the coat check fill up but crowd resembled more of a giant sea of people than individuals, and keeping tabs on potential problems became a task of impossibility.

Around 1:30 am while watching the main dance floor I saw a female start throwing beer into the air onto other guests of the club, an offense that we do not allow any tolerance for.  I instantly charged through the crowd to tell the girl that she had to leave, more so that the other annoyed guests around her would not begin a fight with her as she and her friends were being argumentative and stubborn.  It came forward from a group of guys right next to her that not only did she throw beer but she had struck one of them in the face and literally been trying to push them out of the way.  Annoyed that the girl was being confrontational and would not simply leave, and in the face of a stream of harrowing threats from her, i quickly scanned the surroundings for a fellow bouncer.  I spotted one of the guys we had hired that night up in the V.I.P. area staring at the video screens that play music videos.  I ran up the stairs and grabbed him since he wasn't paying attention, and told him to come help me.  As i continued to tell the girl to leave, my co worker did nothing, at which point i told him to go find more people if he was going to be useless.

This girl and her friends were becoming irate and confrontational, and I was losing my patience.  Another bouncer finally came to assist, and by now the group of guys was tired of getting chastised and beginning to get physical.  It is a basic rule that I cannot touch girls to escort them out of the club, if a guy hits me, i will simply throw him out physically.  A girl can do almost anything to me and i cannot touch her except in self defense.  I made the call that both parties would have to leave and told them this in the form of a finality.  Now both groups were mad as the music grew louder and the crowd just began to press harder, my coworkers and I were growing tired of asking nicely.  The group of guys understood and left without a problem, but the girls continued to be total bitches and scream, and with a crowd at capacity in the club i was not in the mood for this.  I opened my phone and mouthed that i was calling the police to remove them.  She came at me like a freight train and i had to jump aside to avoid getting rammed into the crowd.

I ran over and grabbed another coworker 20 feet away who had not even spotted the scuffle because his attention was focused elsewhere on the thick crowd. Returning to the incident I again pretended to call the cops (not like the police could have heard me anyways), and with four bouncers there now the girls began to comply and we followed the few that had been confrontational down the stairs.  As i returned up stairs to finish the night with the energetic capacity crowd still there I was frustrated and ready for the club to close, but the rest of the night went smoothly.  This story leads to my third rule; Pay attention to your fellow bouncers!  You could end up in a situation that you cannot do anything with and if each other bouncer isn't paying attention, that situation could just become more hostile and dangerous leading to escalation and drunken women charging at you trying to take your life!  A crazy night ended and we all caught our breaths and laughed, i definitely needed a beer after the events of that insane evening.  After that crowd and crazy party, the club had established itself as the place to be in town and that scuffle was just the beginning.