The Red and Black

Issue date: 3/4/08 Section: Variety

Media Credit: PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JAKE DANIELS [Click to enlarge]

Without them, you can't get in, and if you're not careful, they will be the ones who kick you out.

Patrons call them several names, including "dude," "buddy," "man" and others that cannot be printed in good taste. But, for your own sake, don't call them bouncers.

You know them as door guys.

Door guys are the gate keepers of any downtown scene, and in this town, though the job may seem simple - check IDs, keep the bar clean, keep the peace ­- the importance of the position to the establishment cannot be understated.

"The hardest part is the responsibility you have. The people that come in - you take 10 seconds of their time, and they think you're a hassle," said Jeff Putnam, a senior from Duluth. Putnam is now a bartender at J.R.'s Baitshack, but he worked the door for 13 months. "They think bartenders are the entertainment, where without the door guys, the right people wouldn't get in, and we'd be serving underage people all the time."

Underage drinking is an integral part of any downtown bar, something many people know occurs, but few bar employees and owners talk about publicly.

One longtime doorman, known to his readers as the "Athens Door Guy," writes a blog called "Stories from an Athens, Ga. bouncer & bartender."

"It's a no brainer that if a bar only had patrons that were 21-plus in a college town like Athens, they wouldn't make nearly as much money as other bars," he said. "By my estimates, close to 50 percent of kids downtown on any given weekend night are underage."

"On the other hand, I know bars who have policies in place that are much more strict on IDs, without exception. These places are few and far between, but they do exist, and the doormen at those places do a really good job of keeping the underaged kids out."



'Part of the job'

Social skills are not a requirement of the job, but being a doorman does offer a rare opportunity to see every person who enters and leaves the bar. You may make some friends.

"Besides the fact that it's the best avenue to meet people your age, it never gets boring. Every night, you can expect something different to happen. It's not like a 9 to 5," said Andrew Szymanski, a senior from Topsfield, Mass. and a member of The Loft's floor staff.

In those same interactions, however, you may make some enemies - at the very least, people who don't want to send you a Christmas card.

"You'll see people trying everything to get into a bar. They'll try to talk to you and sneak their friends in and pass IDs behind them when they think you can't see," Putnam said.

After people enter the bar, chances are a few of them might have had more to drink than they should. Then the real fun begins.

If he's been working long enough, every doorman will have a story to tell about a bar fight.

Keeping the peace in a bar is difficult because most establishments have a requirement that doormen must resolve disputes with the least amount of force necessary.

"When I used to work at The Loft, there was this one guy who got in a fight and actually hit a girl," J.B. Butts, a sophomore from Baltimore, Md. and a doorman at J.R.'s, said. "When we went to talk to him, he started swinging on us, and it took about five of us to take him down and get him down the steps."

"We're expected to handle any altercation in the most appropriate way," Szymanski said. "That's just a part of the job, a typical night."

For Stephen Reppert, bar fights take on a different meaning. Reppert, 24, is a member of the U.S. Marine Reserves and recently finished a tour of duty in Iraq. Reppert now works as a doorman at Walker's.

"After Iraq, bar fights don't seem that dangerous to me," Reppert said.



Police

The relationship between doormen and the law is a strained one. On one hand, the police are there to help with any kind of altercation.

"You've always got the option to call bike cops. All you have to do is say the word - police and most people will stop," said Alex Pritchett, a senior and a doorman at Walker's. "You don't have a lot of people that aren't afraid of the police because they're usually students. No matter how drunk they are, they usually realize getting arrested may be the end of them."

On the other hand, when it comes to raids and other police work, doormen and law enforcement may butt heads.

"You've got to keep your eye out for the police. They're doing stings all the time," Butts said.

The writer of the Athens Door Guy blog asked of the police in a recent post, "Perhaps instead of threatening to give us background checks and license us or breathalyze us to make sure we're not drinking ourselves to death at work while letting underaged girls offer sexual favors to get them inside, maybe you could see if we'd like to help them instead of being the target of your threats?"

On top of that, bar employees are required by Athens-Clarke County law to do training "as required by policies adopted by the Athens-Clarke County Chief of Police."



Respect

In Athens, where alcohol is part of the culture, the people who get the least respect from bar customers are the doormen, some in the profession say.

Since most bar employees are students and alumni who work until the wee hours of the morning and get disrespected by their peers, many students don't find the job very enticing.

"I've worked in bars in other towns, and in this town, if you get in anybody's way, you're ruining their night," Reppert said. "They forget that you're working, that it's your job."

The pay varies from bar to bar, but many doormen say they make a significant amount.

"On average, it's probably the most money you can make as a college kid on a college schedule," Reppert said.

Door guys are held responsible for the actions of the patrons.

"When a girl knocks over a drink and kicks it under a couch, that has to get cleaned later. Someone may come up and yell at you because they have a fake ID and you won't let them in. Students don't realize that this job is hard," Szymanski said.

The job changed after ACC passed laws prohibiting bar employees from drinking while on the job.

When asked how much respect doormen get from patrons, Putnam said, "None at all. They think they're entitled to get into a bar, even if they're 18."

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