It’s the girl yelling and spilling her drink. It’s the guy shouting and looking for a fight. It’s the person puking in the corner. They’re the people in bars that everyone avoids.
But bouncers and doormen can’t avoid these people, and they don’t simply return to a conversation or order another drink like everyone else enjoying their night.
No, for these guys, the worst people in the bar are the bulk of their night.
Jay Petraitis, a member of the Café 210 West door staff, said most of the people he escorts out of the bar are VIP’s — visibly intoxicated persons.
“Usually people are nice about it,” Petraitis (senior-energy, business and finance) said. “But you will get that handful.”
While escorting people from the bar can cause problems, Petraitis said the tougher job is keeping people out.
“The main problem is whenever we don’t let people in because they’re too drunk,” Petraitis said. “I’ve seen a guy come up to me in the morning after a football weekend with puke all over his shirt.”
Petraitis said that while kicking people out is sometimes difficult, kicking women out is usually more difficult than men.
Petraitis said he keeps his hands in his pockets and just asks the women to leave to avoid them from getting angry.
Blake Hopkins, a Phyrst bouncer, echoed the statement that women are more difficult to escort out of the bar.
“A technique that I use if a girl is too drunk to be in the bar: I’ll go up to her friends,” Hopkins said. “Because most of the time, there’ll be one sober friend and I’ll talk to her and she’ll deal with the situation and get her out of here so there is no problem.”
Hopkins said he escorts someone out of the bar a couple of times a night during the school year, but during the summer it is more relaxed.
Hopkins said escorting people from the bar is the toughest part, because many are too drunk to understand.
“The worst part is dealing with drunk people who are out of control and don’t understand what’s going on,” Hopkins (senior-telecommunications) said. “You’re trying to tell them, but you can’t really get through to them. You try to be calm.”
Hopkins said one of his main responsibilities is to check the IDs of people entering the bar, but he also walks around to make sure everyone is having a good time and not starting any trouble.
Hopkins said the Phyrst uses an ID scanner to ensure that people don’t get in with fake IDs.
“People know in this town it’s very hard to get into bars with fake IDs,” Hopkins said. “We catch all of them, because we have that scanner. We’ve taken classes to study fake IDs too. So we know what’s fake and what’s not.”
William Conway, a doorman at Gingerbread Man, said the bar catches several fake IDs at the beginning of the semesters, but less after students realize they will get caught.
Conway (senior-psychology) said the bar also catches more fake IDs during large events including the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts when the bar caught five fake IDs in one night.