Bouncers

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In another thread I mentioned bouncers, this lead me to remembering the Cavendish in Blackburn.

To get in you would enter a lift then walk a windowed passage to be able to enter the club. Near to the lift along this corridor were the toilets.

I had just taken advantage of these facilities and was walking back along the passage where to my right, was a young lady that had opened one of the windows and I thought was being sick out of it, I went over to see if she was O.K. (it turns out she was just shouting down to her friend below) a few pleasantries later and I was about to re-enter the concert room when one of the largest bouncers I had ever seen grabbed me by the scruff of the neck!

'Your coming with me', he snarled, 'I'll not have you harassing the women'.

Even with the girl actually by my side and telling him there hadn't been a problem he was frogmarching me along the corridor, (he obviously hadn't thrown his quota of people down the emergency stairs and I was to be his next victim).

Just as we got to the stairs my brother-in-law came out of the toilet and could see what was going on and came up behind the bouncer, as I have said the bouncer was massive my b-i-l however was a quiet spoken, gentle giant of an Irishman one of the nicest people you could ever meet, he made the bouncer seem like a dwarf.
'Well now Less, are you having a bit of a problem'?
The bouncer was about to tell him to go away in short jerky movements when he glanced over his shoulder to see Paddy, (yes that really was his name) towering over him, the bouncer literally shrivelled before my eyes, 'no Paddy, I don't think I am anymore, thank's'.
The bouncer actually brushed me down and straightened my tie before wishing us a 'good evening' and making a sharp exit down the stairs almost falling as he ran. we went back to enjoying the company of our wives and beer.

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I've got to admit, I feel that bouncers on the door can be detrimental to a pub, it's saying, 'the kind of people we get in here we expect trouble, so unless I've already arranged to meet someone inside I won't go in these establishments and even then I'll try to move to somewhere more welcoming as soon as I can.

Another trip down memory lane however, lets call it, How Not To Treat Your Customers

It was an AccyWeb meet, unfortunately the pub we had arranged to meet in had a technical difficulty resulting in the beer pumps not working so we had to change venue at the last minute and ended up in the Bees Knees (not the new Bees Knees that used to be the Calder the old one near the Natwest bank which has been closed for some time).

Anyhow about 30 of us arrived at around 8 o'clock, the staff were taken by surprise but they reacted wonderfully, the manager rang around to get his bar staff in early to cope with the rush and the DJ offered to start up an hour earlier for our entertainment.

All went well until 9 o'clock when the bouncers came on duty.
Do you remember Tealeaf? another longstanding member, he was always the life and soul of the meets if he could get up from London.

Well, he had turned up in trainers, the first thing the bouncers did was go up to him and tell him he would have to drink up and leave because they weren't allowed after 9!

Several of us tried to explain that the manager had been happy to have us surely one of us wearing trainers wouldn't be too bad?

Rules is rules etc declared the chief moron, even the manager had to shrug his shoulders and apologise that there was nothing he could do.

Well it was a case of one out, all out, Tealeaf supped up and so did the other 39 (our numbers had increased because the late coming members had joined the meet, when we left, there were six bar staff with very little to do and three customers that had only walked in because the place was buzzing, (one of them even asked where we would be going as he would like to join us).

So, bouncers I think can ruin a pub far sooner than improve it (it isn't as if they could help pour the beer if there is a rush on) just a parasitic waste of space!