Licensing and changes over the years

Well times have changed a lot regarding who can and who can't work on a door, in fact the whole security industry has had a major overhaul over the last decade or so.

When I first started on the door there were no background checks or exams it was quite simple, someone you knew worked on the doors or knew someone who did and and had told them you could fight!  They would ask if you fancied trying it so you suited up and shouted at anyone who was carrying on and fought and dragged out anyone who kicked off usually bouncing them off every door on the way.  You kept your job if you worked well with the guys and the venue owners liked you, you lost you Job if they didn't or if you lost a simple fight.  That was pretty much it, get on with people and don't lose!  Or don't lose to a normal one on one fight or you'd probably be gone as no one would want to work with you!

Then for me as I lived in Yorkshire you had to pay for your own criminal background check and go to the police station and you'd essentially get a laminated card with your photo and a number on it, I'm assuming it was just to make sure you weren't a murderer or anything because little changed about how we worked the doors until the government decided to licence and regulate the security industry.

At first it was a total shambles as you'd expect to be honest with a ridiculous amount of paperwork and background checks which In some cases didn't work!  The turnaround for your licence was supposed to be short but my first SIA (security industry authority) badge took six months to process!  I've no idea why as some were within weeks and some took ages for no apparent reason as I had no problems with my background in any way.  

One of the big rule changes about who could and who couldn't get a licence was whether or not you had any convictions for violence in the last six years which i know sounds sensible but you have to remember what industry we work in!  Violence was and is a massive part of the Job and I knew several doormen who could no longer get licences because they had assault charges against them, more often that you'd think though these assaults were not necessarily started by the doorman in question so you did have some great doormen who'd kicked a punter out and got into trouble for it due to lack of witnesses usually and they couldn't work a door anymore, a great waste.  Couple this with losing some of the real hard men out there, again because of violence at some point, great you might think don't need them on the door.  The trouble with that is these guys are now out drinking on a weekend not sorting the fights out and getting told by their 18 year old wannabe replacements that they've had too much to drink!  A recipe for disaster there!

The strangest thing of all though was the complete lack of physical intervention as it's called now, I sat through four days of tedious health and safety (common sense) related waffle that most of which we all joked at.  I mean there was a room with around 25 experienced doormen in it being told by someone who sounded like a geography teacher what was now expected of us at work and for the most part it seemed as though we all had to be school corridor monitors! 

Sidenote here .... I was told by the "geography teacher" that NO ONE had failed the course yet and this was six months into the scheme sorry licensing.....

Needless to say most of us were not overly impressed with this as we knew it was just another way the government could get some money out of us as the "course" and licence were around £500 if memory serves.  Of course when we questioned this at all stages we were told that these new licences were like gold dust and any front line operative as we were now termed could name our price! What a load of bollocks, when I started on the door 15 years ago I got £10 per hour and for the most part that's pretty much still the standard rate, less tax and insurance which is now deducted by your door company.......

Over the last 6 years or so the SIA turnaround has improved and the course is far more relevant and slightly cheaper I think, in fact at one time if you were unemployed the Job Centre would pay for your badge so you could get work and this had a disastrous affect on my sector of the industry as a massive influx of licensed "people" appeared, and if you needed extra door staff then the licence was crucial as it was written into all premises alcohol licences that SIA licensed staff had to be used and if you were caught without a licence prison time was threatened and has happened to some!  This just meant we had to sort through all "people" and find the ones we wanted, some folk didn't even finish a shift without shitting themselves seeing a fight with sober eyes and this led to a lot of extra stress at work for us!

Now we have more powers on the door but still have to be very careful how we exercise them as the American suing culture has hit the UK big time.  I know of one instance when a man hit someone in a club and the assistant manager told a doorman to hold him until the police got there.  This is totally legal as long as the police are called as soon as is possible, unfortunately in this instance the assistant manager dealt with a bar issue before calling the police, so the man was detained for around half an hour, the result?  The DOORMAN was arrested, charged and is serving prison time for false imprisonment.  Serious times and door staff have had to change with them so knowing the law and your part in it is key now, as well as being polite, patient sympathetic and everything else that's required of us, I'm sure stopping people getting hurt should be closer to the too of the list though!

Finally the present day, where the SIA licence is in full swing ..... Until at least 2015 I think I last heard then there's ping to be a change, oh joy.  

Now nearly all door companies are required to pay door staff's tax and insurance for them, just so the government can make sure they absolutely and positively account for even more money I mean they want to know where every penny goes don't they so gone are the days of earning a few extra quid on top of your normal job folks that'll be extra tax for you!  Fair enough say many people why shouldn't they pay more tax, cos the wages haven't gone up reasonably that's why!  Don't for one second think that this is a well paid profession, it used to be but for the most part and with licensing bringing competition between companies your average doorman takes home around £8.50 per hour after deductions and for the violence involved its just not worth it to a lot of the old school guys so one by one they're going, I just hope their replacements don't get hurt too much that's all!

Crazy Eastern Europeans 1

I've worked with a few foreign doormen over the years, most of whom are stand up guys and certainly not scared of anything put in front them!
One of these guys we called G, now G was from Lithuania and had very eastern block mannerism's, a flat top hair cut and reminded me a little of Dolph Lundgren in his old films, rarely smiling and usually volunteering for the loneliest, coldest jobs going.  One in particular was the back door of our local revolution bar, it was basically a manned fire escape, some nights opened to cool down inside but only used as an exit never an entrance and  it was, in my opinion, the coldest, loneliest most depressing position we had. G loved it.
To make my point a little more about how impassive G was, most doormen would give a thumbs up to each other whilst making eye contact on a patrol, when I patrolled inside however even making eye contact with G was difficult as he would invariably be looking scary, glaring, at the dance floor, occasionally I'd get a nod, not to let me know everything was OK it was more a acknowledgment of my presence... it's not that G was cocky its more he had this genuine belief of, I am here, none shall pass.  We even used to joke that we'd have to be careful with the words we used because we feared if we said "G, let no one out of this door" the bloody building could be burning down and he'd be throwing people back in!  Maybe slightly excessive but you didn't meet the guy!
The clearest memory I have of G was on a weekend night when I had popped out the front of rev's and was smiling as two chav's were being turned away, mouthy as always, they moved on down the side of the bar so the head doorman radioed to G, "G there's two young chav's heading round the back, make sure they don't sneak through and if they give you any grief, hey just kill them."

We smiled at each other then went silent when a thick Eastern European accent came back like a robot "Message received and understood." 

Olympics hijinks

When G4S messed up their security bid for the Olympics it meant certain security work had to be farmed out to local door companies.  I was lucky enough to be asked If I wanted to go to Newcastle for two weeks and work security there, I jumped at the chance of course with the company boss setting up digs for me and one other doorman from Yorkshire, all we had to do was get ourselves there and we'd have two weeks with twelve hour shifts every day, something good to put on the CV I thought.
When we got there we found out our team had been assigned the vehicle IED checkpoint, in other words any vehicle from cars to HGV's to police vans that wished to enter ST James Park had to come through us first, 20 doormen per shift working 7-7 shifts, myself on the quieter night shift and able to utilize some hi tech equipment, a big responsibility one which I'll add at this point (before I tell the funny stuff) we took very seriously and performed with ultra efficiency, much to some policemen's disgust and our joy, after all the police didn't really like being searched by a group of doormen!
Now the basic layout was a blocked checkpoint at one end of a street, two marquees, one for vehicle checks and one for personnel checks, and a final checkpoint at the other end of the street.   Now when a vehicle stops at the checkpoint it's always radioed through to the team leader and if it has the necessary documentation then is allowed straight to the vehicle marquee, this gives around one minute from radio contact to the vehicle pulling into the marquee, the amount of times this was pushed to the very second because, A, we were watching a movie (or porn) against the marquee wall, B, several people were asleep, one time I do actually remember saying, "someone wake Tom up and get him out of the X-Ray machine please" or C, we were messing around in some other way, we're doormen after all and always find a way of entertaining ourselves.
We never let anyone see just how relaxed we were sometimes but then that's the point, when we needed to we were switched on in seconds and I'm proud to say I worked with some great lads there, we did however get a bollocking once as, having been presented with an industrial size X-ray machine it took seconds for us to discuss who was going inside for a scan, totally ignoring the MASSIVE yellow sign warning us not to!   Our team leader took responsibility and, my camera phone at the ready he lay down on the conveyor belt and was then x-rayed coming out of the machine and seeing me filming he shouted "That does not go on YouTube!"
Yes I still have the vid and no it's not on YouTube, (It's on the Facebook Page.)
Much laughter ensues as we see the scan and his ahem, appendage appears rather on the small side!   What we then found out, or rather the following day when we got a bollocking, we were told the damn X-Ray machine was networked and the images had gone straight through to HQ!  From then on the machine was only used for X-Rays, and sleeping.
Things would get a little tedious in the wee hours of the morning and, to keep us on edge, the sacking's, and choking's began.   Choking is as it sounds as an unsuspecting doorman would be taken roughly from behind as it were and placed in a choke, the record stood between 3-4 seconds from taking hold to either making the doorman tap or, well begin to blackout really!  Staff training at its finest and a lesson to always be on your guard.   Sacking's however are something I've always hated as the victim will usually receive a backhanded slap to their balls!  I still work with guys who find it hilarious to do that to each other, myself I prefer the overkill is underrated approach, in other words if you sack me, I'll pick you up by yours!
Needless to say the combination of chokes and sacks led to us standing in the street, on more than one occasion, in the biggest circle you can imagine, just so we could all keep an eye on each other!