The Life of a Bouncer

The bouncing profession has changed dramatically in Houston and many who work in the field only do it for a short time because of the increasing violence, physical and emotional demand of the job.

Damon Smith, or Big D as friends call him, knows how bouncing can change your life for good or bad. The father of three girls, Smith knows that working for a nightclub can help to pay the bills. Smith who takes care of his paralyzed mother and is the sole provider of his household said he does the job for one reason. “The money,” said Smith.
“You get paid well, because we have to keep peace in the club,” said Smith.

“With so much violence happening in the clubs these days you always wonder if you will get hurt,” said Big D. With his six foot two, heavy muscular, 350 pound frame, Smith said the job has elements of danger. “A bullet can stop anybody, no matter how big you are,” said Smith. “That’s why the job is so dangerous. Back in the day all you had to worry about was fighting, but these day’s people want to shoot.” His goal may be to keep trouble makers in their place, but it is not an easy one. He needs a full crew to help him achieve it. That’s where Tyrone Holden, or Tee as friends call him, comes in to play. As the manager of Didy’s sports bar, Tee has hired a crew of well trained bouncers to help Big D. Tee knows good bouncers from bad ones. He been a bouncer for 15 years and has worked for some of Houston top security franchises.

“Some guys have never done anything in their miserable lives. They’ve never done shit and they’ve never been shit, so they hit up some guy at the gym for a few vials of God-knows-what, stick a needle in their ass for half a year, and then go out looking for a job, said Tee”. These are the guys you don’t hire. What you want is a normal guy. Some establishments think along these lines. They don’t stop to consider whether a new guy fits in, and after a while, as good people bailout, what you’re left with is a staff full of ass wipes who’d rather fight each other than protect the club owner’s investment, which is the only reason they were hired in the first place.”

In Big D case, he is a well trained bouncer who works with six other bouncers. Big D has been bouncing for 5 years; he even was a manager of a local strip club for 2 years. “By having six other well trained bouncers it makes my job a lot easier,” said Big D”. “Bouncing’s like anything else you learn it only by doing,” said Rob the Bouncer”. “He understands that one or two men can’t get the job done. Thus, it takes a well trained team to run a big establishment effectively. Big D is a personable, friendly guy who talks to patrons without appearing threatening or intimidating. The best bouncers don’t bounce anyone they talk to people. The mere presence of a well-trained bouncer will remind the patron that their conduct is being scrutinized and that their patronage can be revoked. The ultimate goal of a bouncer is to see that everyone has a good time, but within established limits. Bouncers can all fight,” Salter noted, “But they rank each other by their talking ability. The lowest ranked fought the most. The highest ranked had the best social skills. “The best bouncers and doormen are articulate and quick with comebacks,” said Salter”.

When you become a bouncer you are introduced to all of the good and bad things that happen in a club,” said Jay”. Drugs and guns are the one thing a bouncer wants to avoid. Many people in clubs sell drugs on the low. Some have men who are associated with the movement of drugs in the club. This can be hazardous to the lively hood of a bouncer. When a club becomes a problem for law enforcement, it can make a bouncers life hell. At any time the club could be raided, meaning a bouncer has to be more alert to what is happen around him. If the club gets raided and drugs are found then a bouncer may go down with the guilty. Police don’t care if you where the one selling are not you are still guilty as the others in there eyes. Any increased crime around the club, can cause the club to be put under strict surveillance.

A Night in the Life of a Bouncer
A normal day would be you waking up about 8a.m., grabbing a cup of coffee, throwing on a suite, and driving to work. As you arrive to work you say your good mornings, and head into the office for another day of the same old thing When your day at the office is over, you go home grab something to eat, watch a little T.V., and go to sleep.

The life of bouncers, are not so simple. While you are at home in the bed sleep, they are protecting the lives of patrons at local night clubs. When you are getting up to go to work most, are just arriving home from a long night of work. There day doesn’t end when they arrive home. Most have children who they must help get ready for school. They also have errands to run for the household. The life of a bouncer is one without sleep. Big D rarely gets sleep once he arrives home. After work Big D, comes home to get his three beautiful daughters ready for school.


Decades ago you could have considered that big strong men would be escorting great politicians. You would think of them as the politicians own personal escorts. These days’ big strong agile men are called bouncers. They are the first and last thing people see when coming and going from night clubs. That’s the thing about bouncers: for all their density and predictability, their routine enforcements and worn-smooth one-liners, they are not quite of this world. Reality tilts around them. Tiny Bouncers are to be feared, while extra-large ones presenting as they do the affronting spectacle of incommutability find themselves constantly challenged by smaller men. In ethnographic terms, the bouncer is the big daddy of the luminal realm, the place of thresholds, through which participants in the rite are conducted. If you like as they pass from one state of being to another. Jittery clubbers at the door, agitating for entry; the gyre of an out-of-control pit, slewing toward carnage; a drugged or boozed patron sprouting invisible tusks of hostility; the bouncer is there, filling the space, negotiating the transition. Not always skillfully, and not always nicely, but then heavy-handedness is part of his job description. To make something bounce, you have to smack it from time to time. They are most visible aspect of security in a nightclub or bar is the often the huge guys working in a club. The proper application of bouncers and doormen as part of a nightclub and bar security plan is important.

Duties of a Bouncer and Floor Man
Some clubs employ burly-looking guys who set the tone of the club like Big D. Other clubs use well-dressed ladies and gentlemen to make patrons feel like they have entered a nightclub with dignity and class. The true function of a bouncer is to provide access control for a busy nightclub and screen those that enter. A bouncer is traditionally the person who stands at the door and checks Ids to assure that each patron is of age to legally enter the establishment and is dressed appropriately. In some high end clubs, bouncers use metal detectors, when young people are mostly attracted and have an expectation of finding weapons. Another function of a bouncer is to prevent admittance to those who are obviously intoxicated or who have previously caused trouble inside the club. Most clubs have an “86 policy where objectionable patrons are barred from returning to the club for some designated period of time. Depending on the club, a bouncer can be used to collect cover charges, tickets, or direct patrons to tables.

In addition to normal duties, some nightclubs use the door staff to monitor patron conduct on the sidewalk as well as inside the club. At Didy’s Diego makes sure people don’t throw beer bottles on the ground when they leave. The nature of this additional task can lead to confrontations with aggressive nightclub patrons if not handled professionally. Obviously, more training and experience is required as the bouncer becomes more assertive and begins to assume more security-like duties. Most busy night clubs begin to have problems at the door when too many duties are heaped on to an inexperienced and poorly trained bouncer.

A nightclub is about the business of providing hospitality where people can come to relax, unwind, and have a good time. “If a patron is spending money than, a bouncer should work harder not to throw them out,” said Tee”. A floor man is the person who works on the inside of the club. A good floor man will manage the patrons inside a club and will see to it that no one becomes overly aggressive and spoils the party. A well-trained floor man will circulate throughout the club, be highly visible, and easily identifiable as a club employee. The floor man should continually evaluate the conduct and attitudes of each patron and watch for changes in behavior. Let’s face its, drinking alcohol in a nightclub setting is designed to remove inhibitions and subtle behavior changes are expected. “A floor man just has to recognize negative behavior changes and begin to manage the patron,” said Walter Castillo.” Good floor men will use eye contact and body language to let troublesome patrons know that their conduct is reaching the threshold for unacceptable behavior. It is up to the night club to set conduct limits and then require the floor man to evenly and fairly enforce those rules. The best run clubs enforce rules and do so immediately. A well-timed and discreet comment from the floor man about offensive language or behavior is all that is necessary, in most cases, to resolve objectionable behavior. Sometimes, second reminders are necessary followed by warnings that further conduct will result in being asked to leave the premises. Any patron who aggressively rejects a reasonable request to behave should be asked to leave. Remember though that rule violations are not the same as crimes. The biggest mistake a floor man can make is to ignore a patron who has become a nuisance and hope that they will either calm down or leave on their own. The worst case scenario can occur when another patron is forced to confront an overly aggressive customer on their own because the floor man was oblivious to the situation. Ultimately, the situation becomes explosive, a fight breaks out, and the floor men are forced to physically separate and eject the brawlers. This is not only bad business, but can become dangerous for everyone involved.

Ejection of a Disruptive Patron
Having to eject a patron from a nightclub doesn't always mean that the floor man did not manage them properly earlier in the evening. Sometimes people come into a nightclub just looking for trouble, or can’t handle alcohol, or can’t interact socially with others. Sometimes, patrons bring their outside anger inside the club and no one knows about it until violence erupts. These people need to be asked to leave the club by the floor man as soon as their hostile conduct becomes evident. No one likes to be asked or told to leave an establishment, especially if they paid a cover charge to get in. If a floor man has reminded the guest several times about their conduct then it will come as no surprise when finally asked to leave. If the patron is taken aside and discreetly told about the decision, the likelihood of an aggressive exchange is reduced. There is nothing worse than having a big bouncer-type approach a young man, in front of his friends, and tell him to leave. After embarrassing this young man, you are guaranteed to get a verbal barrage of insults and foul language that may escalate into a physical fight. If it becomes necessary to escort an aggressive patron to the door, floor men should be well trained to do so. For safety purposes, a rule of thumb is to have at least one more floor man present than the number of people, being escorted out. Unless a patron has committed a crime, floor men are generally not allowed to use physical force. This is not to say that you cannot slightly touch a patron to guide, direct, or block re-entry. Force should only be used in self-defense or for the purpose of detaining a criminal for the police. Punching, kicking, tackling, dragging, or putting someone in a choke hold are all inappropriate methods for floor men.

Personal Life Stories
When you first become a bouncer there is no guide that will get you ready for the craziness of the job. The only thing that can be said is “do you really know what you have gotten yourself into.” The life of a bouncer is a surreal one. When I first started bouncing, it was at this club called the Vault. The Vault was an upscale club where well of kids came to enjoy there time. I guess that’s what my boss where hoping there turnout would be. The first months where pretty good ones we where always pack. We where making enough money to pay the bills and then some. Then out of nowhere everything went north. The problem was that right down the street they had open up this new fancy club called Visions. That how club life is, one minute your hot the next minute your not. Two months later we would have to close down. We no longer where in the green we, now where in the red. That’s the one thing a club owner never wants to be in. Making money is the biggest goal, and when you can’t do that its time to setup shop else where.

The next club I worked for was a club called the Player’s club. The Player’s club was a after hours club along the Richmond strip. It was located in the same parking lot as Max’s and Big Yo’s. This job wouldn’t last long, because every night was a night of violence you went to work you expected to get shot at. One night there was a fight at Max’s. Max’s had some pretty well trained security guards; they also had of duty HPD (Houston Police Department). On this particular night they had a big fight breakout in the club between some guys. The fight would spill out into the parking lot where me and Jabari a.k.a. JB was chilling. Me and JB would usual chill outside with Herman Perry a.k.a. Baby Huey and wait for the other clubs to let out. This guy was a huge dude about 6-8 350 pounds. This guy was handling Max’s security like it was nothing, and Max’s security were not little guys. He was also whooping up on the guys who he had the altercation with to. When out of nowhere you here gun shots the next thing you know you see the big guy hit the ground like a ton of bricks. Then you see another little guy run up and shot the big man six more times while on the ground. As if the first two didn’t get the job done. Now I know you asking yourself, where are the HPD officers that I mentioned well while all the commotion is going on there sneaking out the back door. Comes to found out that they where working there without reporting it to there superiors. To see that big guy get shot like that made me respect what a gun could do to a guy like me.

Now many people would wonder how a bouncer moves a big crowd. Well one way to do it is with pepper spray. One night me and JB where trying to get the crowd to move out the parking lot in a timely manner. He would give me a can of this new pepper stray, and tell me to stray it along the ground. Boy did that stray get the crowd to move, they got out of the parking lot like something was chasing them. It was the funniest thing that I had ever saw

Pushed to Far
This will be a very straightforward of how a bouncer can be pushed only so far by an imbecile before he blows his stack and wants desperately to use violence to solve the problem. A bouncer - at least a patient, fair-minded one like Tee try to be - will blow his stack and resort to violence only when customers forget their “place” – and their physical limitations – and push and push and push until someone ends up getting pissed off and pushes back.

Security
The biggest problem bouncer’s face today in nightclub security is the serious lack of education/training. Today night clubs as a last resort are hiring off-duty police officers or Rent-A-Cops to work their clubs. This is a serious mistake, a police officer or "D" class security guard is trained under a totally different protocol. It’s like putting a fighter pilot in a NASCAR at the Daytona 500! Over 90% of the lawsuits filed against nightclubs today are a direct result of incompetent or over-excessive security personnel. Today you have an abundant of choices for proper security training. One place you can go is the Security Liability Reduction Associate (SLRA). They will train on proper procedure and protocol. Other places that train bouncers are The Bouncer’s Bible, and XL Excell Security Inc.

Retirement
Once a bouncers reaches a certain age, are has worked a certain number of years they retire. One would probably wonder what a bouncer does when they retire. Most of them write books, telling you about there lives as a bouncer. Rob the Bouncer has written many books detailing bouncers. His latest “Club life” is a top seller, and gives an exciting look into his life. Others open up there own clubs. Jaime Hernandez was once a bouncer, now at the age of 55 he runs his own night club. “All those years of working at clubs showed me how to run one effectively”, said Hernandez”. Some bouncers save up the money they make, so when they get old they can open there own club. Some retire and open up security schools for bouncers. In these schools they train other bouncers on what they should and shouldn’t do. Mike Sullivan has opened his own security business. His man requirement for his schools is The Bouncer’s Bible. “This will guide threw anything you encounter as a bouncer”, said Sullivan”.