Knowing how your bar is a microcosm of the community in which it operates can help you to run a safer business built around better understanding your security staff and bouncers.
By Robert C. Smith
Nightclub Security Consultants
The afterthought of a “bouncer” and what is asked of them must be pushed to the forefront. The hospitality industry has to start including them in every conversation about revenue, increasing profits, limiting liability, and overall bar or community health and safety.
We’re all citizens of our various communities. Whether large or small, we expect our municipal governments to fix potholes, keep our parks clean, and provide programs that create a safe community. To achieve that, our city governments provide police officers that patrol the streets and act as a deterrent to that 1% of bad citizens. And on rare occasion, those police officers put themselves in harm’s way for the sake of the community, sometimes giving their lives for the cause.
Standard dictionaries say “a microcosm is a smaller version of something larger.” Would you consider your bar or your club a microcosm of your larger community?
I have worked with over 1,000 bars and clubs across the country and can absolutely say that most bars or clubs are smaller versions of their larger community.
“Think about your licensed venue and the employees, about their jobs and duties and responsibilities. It doesn’t matter if you are open every day or only party on Friday and Saturday nights. Whether you’re an upscale hotspot like The Shadow Room in Washington, D.C., or you’re a smaller, urban cowboy bar like Double Deuce in San Diego, California—these places are both microcosms of their communities.
