Email Q&A

“I'm basically in a position where I am trying to get my friend allowed back into our favourite club. He was barred for 4 weeks for being a drunk idiot. The bouncer who last stopped him getting in didn't know it was for 4 weeks, and it seems to me like he's never going to get back in.

I'm hoping you could answer a couple of questions.

Is there always a head bouncer? What's the best way to talk to you guys? It's going to be a task while he's on the door or when we're lining up, isn't it? I imagine some of the bouncers will just say no.

How have people who were once banned managed to let you to get them back in?

I'm trying to contact a manager about it and explain what happened because it's our favourite place and everyone we know goes there.”

When someone acts like a “drunk idiot” in a bar or club, it causes more of a problem for a bouncer than you probably think it does. Some bouncers like when situations like this arise, and they get off on exercising their “power” and throwing people out. It also gets their rocks off when people are so desperate to get back in the following week – I’ve never quite figured the habitual customer mentality out, but to each his own – that they come back muttering acts of contrition for the right to go inside and murder their brain cells.

Other bouncers, like me, don’t like this sort of thing. When you act like a drunken idiot in front of me, I’m on alert because I could potentially get hurt. When a customer starts acting like a jerkoff, I’m automatically fast-forwarding to the time, five minutes into the future, when I’ll be dealing with him physically. Does he have a weapon? Does he have a disease? Is he drunk or drug-addled enough to bite me if I start getting the better of him? Who needs that shit?

These things go through our minds. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I pretty much just want to be left alone at work. I want to come in, stand around for several hours, get my cash and go home. If someone has given me problems in the past, and it’s my call to let him in or send him on his way, I usually exercise my right to keep him out.

It sounds to me like you’re dealing with a bouncer who thinks the way I do. Bouncers are normal people. We have lives outside the bar or club, just like you. We have rents and mortgages to pay, just like you. We become bouncers because we have additional expenses, like kids and medical bills, that we’re having a hard time paying off with just one job. If someone gives us an excessive amount of ballbusting at work, why the fuck should we let them have the chance to do it again?

That said, there’s a very easy way to solve your problem. All you have to do is ask for the head bouncer and pay him. If you go with a group of, say, five guys, you should each hand the guy $40 and explain to him, very contritely, why you’re doing so. Tell him he’ll never have a problem with you again, and that he doesn’t have to worry about you anymore. You probably don’t like this solution very much, but it’s reality. If I’ve had a problem with you, I want two things before I let you back in:

1. I want to know that you won’t be a problem for me ever again.

2. I want to be compensated, financially, for whatever kind of shit you pulled on me the last time.

See, the payment is the key thing here. As I’ve said before, you can essentially do whatever the fuck you want in a club if you’re willing to pay for it. This includes, at least to a point, causing problems for bouncers. Provided your friend didn’t hurt anyone, this should work like a charm.