Women on the door

Careful on this subject Dan some of the girls involved may read this!   Back in the day there were very few female doorstaff and you'd be forgiven for thinking some of them were male!   The reason there were so few was that old school doorstaff had more than their fair share of fights and generally men tend to want to do this more for a living more than women, of course there's no less violence these days but with more female doorstaff being present the lads who are fighting are quite often reluctant to hit a woman and this fact can be used to good advantage in many situations.  Sadly this doesn't always work and I remember removing someone by his feet years ago for punching a female door woman, would I have reacted the same way if it had been a male member of staff?  Actually, probably yes I would but that's just me some of the guys I worked with that night wanted to do a damn sight more than just drag him out the hard way I can tell you!

In my opinion this is probably the biggest drawback of having a female member of doorstaff as, some, men tend to instinctively protect women around them and I've seen a female member of staff get hit in a fight and have two doormen stop dealing with their attackers to help her, commendable in one way but in all honesty unless she's been bottled or something equally as bad which would also incapacitate a man then helping her was just dangerous as those two attackers could easily have kept going and made a bad situation much worse, we get hit in this line of work and when you're part of any front line team hesitation can be extremely dangerous, better a black eye than bottle in the neck.

There are a few things you just can't do if you don't have a female member of doorstaff, chiefly of these being searches as the law states same sex searches only so if we suspect drugs we'd have to detain the individual and wait for the police, in most cases this doesn't happen as we're far too busy to use the time of a doorman to detain someone we suspect of casual drug use so normally we just ask them to leave but this too can obviously cause problems!

Male doorstaff can't go into any female bathrooms without a female member of staff present either, unless something serious is happening of course but of you're only suspecting something then it's hard to hide a doorman in a female toilet, people generally realise something's up!

It's an incredibly hard environment for a female to survive in and even harder to earn the respect of both their peers and the public and I'm proud to say I know a few who have done just this, you'll always hear tales of a female doorwoman being useless or overaggressive and a lesbian, well there are useless doormen too and if you've just had your ass kicked and dragged out by a woman you should probably think of a better comeback than to call her a lesbian, you're only embarrassing yourself more and if she's straight and overaggressive she's only gonna kick your ass again and believe me some of the girls I know can do just that!

The things people say to get in

Well all I can say is that alcohol must really stimulate the creative side of people's brain because some of the utter drivel you hear on the door does make you laugh.  

It's almost as if people really don't think we hear the same lines every weekend cos believe me, we do!   I love the girls response to why they're stumbling, most say its because of their heels, some have said this however, when they're barefoot!

The most common response to a refusal or even asking if they're ok cos they seem a little fresh has to be "are you serious?"  I'm literally asked this week in and out and sometimes I must say I want to commit murder when I hear it when I've just tried to be nice!  It's as if people have an attitude replacement that means doorstaff are to be ignored and everything they say needs to be questioned, it's getting pretty irritating to a lot of us who long for the old days when people just did as they were told a lot more and if they questioned you, you knew they wanted to fight you!   It was pretty much cut and dry back then and the arrogance of some people is unreal I mean I stand there saying goodnight to people only to be totally blanked, nice eh. But I digress, again.  

"I'm fine" is another common comment when talking to customers, unfortunately this is usually said as they are having trouble standing up or in some cases, barely coherent! 

"Come on mate, don't be a dick let me in"  Speaks for itself really I mean swear at me whilst asking to be let in?  I don't think so.

But the absolute worst is the guy who tries to buy his way in, I'm not just talking about the drunk with an outstretched £20 in his hand, no I mean the arrogant ones who think just because they have money they can do what they like.

Not that long ago the assistant manager of a nightclub I was working in pulled me to one side, he'd just seen someone urinating in our smoking area which is bad enough but the fact that it was open and had customers in was even worse!  He wanted to be sure who it was as he suspected it was a local "rich boy" part of the next generation of wealthy kids turning 18 and starting drinking, not someone you want to accuse without absolute proof as it could cost the venue lots of money if incorrect and he took offence and decided not to come back.  We checked the CCTV together and it a positive ID, yes it was the lad he suspected it was so I located him, once again in the smoking area and approached him to ask him to leave.  At first he denied it, categorically stating that it wasn't him, it took me saying look I've just watched the CCTV and unless you want to be slapped with an £80 fine from the police I suggest you leave, and because you're blatantly lying to me you can stay away for a few weeks too, start of next month you can come back.   

Well he left without a fuss but came back the following week, he was just being ushered through by one of the promo guys on the front door when I stopped them.  He offered to pay a fine to us so he could come back in but I knew that that would mean nothing to him really, he'd only left without an argument because I'd said I'd involve the police so I stood my ground and said no amount of money could buy his way back in before the end of the month as what he'd done was disgusting and he'd lied about it! Tail between legs he left, score one for doorstaff!

What's the worst thing I've seen?

Well that depends on how you look at worst and what you consider to be just part of the job or shocking behaviour.  A lot of people say, oh you get used to it but in reality it's amazing what you can get used to!  Verbal insuslt's, physical threats and assaults, pretty much a standard weekends work in most venues either inside or more often on the front door.   

Probably the worst thing I saw inside a venue was in Scunthorpe where groups of young men were commonplace when I worked there and fights broke out with alarming regularity.  On one evening a group of Polish lads had singled out someone to pick on from what I can gather and in seconds they surrounded him and attacked, I mean there was about ten guys pounding on this lad obviously doing serious damage straight away.  When the call came over the radio we charged into the centre trying to protect the guy who could barely stand and was bent double as a doorman tried to help him.  The group circled us but stopped and didn't attack us, one guy however decided that he didn't care we were there and ran in kicking the helpless guy full on in the face exploding his nose showering blood everywhere and sending the lad flying backwards, myself and one other doorman pounced on he attacker as he came in again relying on the rest of the door team to watch out backs, I don't know why but the rest of the group started to disperse, I don't know maybe they realised their friend had crossed the line as their victim was totally unconscious on the floor in a pool of blood, not a pretty sight I can tell you.

We took the polish lad down a fire escape to the nearest exit and I don't mind admitting that I used Him to open the fire door with, I can't stand bullies and what he'd just done could have killed someone so I had just enough time to slam him into the door which burst open straight out into a police unit, arrested and charged.

As for the front door it wasn't actually anything to do with me or my venue, I was in Scarborough at the Blue Lounge one Boxing Day and witnessed a full on street fight break out in front of me!  Back then Scarborough was extremely busy on bank holidays and Boxing Day was usually just crazy, one year over 7000 people came through the bar during the day!   I've no idea how it started but the streets were filled with drinkers in a variety of states all day and suddenly two guys were fighting right across the street from me then everyone seemed to join in!  I'd say around 30 people were full on fighting in the middle of the street for no apparent reason!  What did we do?  Radio the towns CCTV operators and close the bloody door that's what!