A bouncer (also known as a door supervisor or cooler) is a type of security guard, employed at licensed or sanctioned venues such as bars, nightclubs, cabaret clubs, strip clubs and casinos. A bouncer's duties are to provide security, to check legal age and drinking age, to refuse entry for intoxicated people, and to deal with aggressive, violent or verbal behavior or disobedience with statutory or establishment rules. They are also charged with maintaining order, and ensuring that laws and regulations are followed by all patrons.
They are civilians and they are often hired directly by the venue, rather than by a security firm. Bouncers are often required where crowd size, clientele or alcohol consumption may make arguments or fights a possibility, or where the threat or presence of criminal gang activity or violence is high. At some clubs, bouncers are also responsible for "face control", choosing who is allowed to patronize the establishment. Some establishments may also assign a bouncer to be responsible for cover charge collections. In the United States, civil liability and court costs related to the use of force by bouncers are "the highest preventable loss found within the [bar] industry", as many United States bouncers are often taken to court and other countries have similar problems of excessive force. In many countries, state governments have taken steps to professionalise the industry by requiring bouncers to have training, licensing, and a criminal records background check. In the United Kingdom, all door supervisors are required to be registered with and are licensed by the Security Industry Authority. These operatives go through a one-week training regime, and are often more highly skilled than operatives without this training, as is evident by the reduced number of assaults by bouncers since the introduction of the licence. Some licensed premises are obligated to use registered door supervisors as a condition of their licence. Terminology Other terms include "cooler" in the U.S. and "door supervisor" in the U.K. In U.S. bars, "cooler" is often the term for the head bouncer. The "cooler" is expected to have the same ability to respond to physical situations as the rest of the bouncers, but should also have reliable interpersonal skills that can be used to de-escalate situations without violence.
History In the 1990s and 2000s, increased awareness of the risks of lawsuits and criminal charges have led many bars and venues to train their bouncers to use communication and conflict resolution skills before, or rather than, resorting to brute force against troublemakers. However, the earlier history of the occupation suggests that the stereotype of bouncers as rough, tough, physical enforcers has indeed been the case in many countries and cultures throughout history. Historical references also suggest that the 'door supervisor' function of guarding a place and selecting who can have entry to it (the stereotypical task of the modern bouncer) could at times be an honorific and evolve into a relatively important position.
Ancient The significance of the door supervisor as the person allowing (or barring) entry is found in a number of Mesopotamian myths (and later in Greek myths descended from them), including that of Nergal overcoming the seven doormen guarding the gates to the Underworld.
In 1 Chronicles 26 of the Old Testament, the Levitical Temple is described as having a number of "gatekeepers"—amongst their duties are "protect[ing] the temple from theft", from "illegal entry into sacred areas" and "maintain[ing] order", all functions they share with the modern concept of the bouncer, though the described temple servants also serve as holy persons and administrators themselves (it is noted that some administrative function is still present in today's bouncing in the higher position of the supervisor). Door supervisors or bouncers are usually larger persons who display great strength and size.
The Romans had a position known as the ostiarius (doorkeeper), initially a slave, who guarded the door, and sometimes ejected unwanted people from the house whose gate he guarded. The term later become a low-ranking clergy title. Plautus, in his play Bacchides (written approximately 194–184 BC), mentions a "large and powerful" doorman / bouncer as a threat to get an unwelcome visitor to leave. Tertullian, an early Christian author living mainly in the 2nd century AD, while reporting on the casual oppression of Christians in Carthage, noted that bouncers were counted as part of a semi-legal underworld, amongst other 'shady' characters such as gamblers and pimps.De Fuga in Persecutione – Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, via The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume XI, Second Edition, Page 393, Cambridge University Press, 1970
Within Buddhist lore, the Nio, the twin guardian statues who decorate the entrances of temples, dojos, and various places related with religious importance, are believed to be the embodiment of wrathful deity bodhisattvas such as Vajrapani, Mahasthamaprapta, Vajrasattva, Acala, or various figures within Buddhist legend who accompanied Gautama Buddha during his journeys to spread his teachings to protect him and aid in cases needing justified force.
Modern During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, US saloon-keepers and brothel madams hired bouncers to remove troublesome, violent, or dead-drunk patrons, and to protect the saloon girls and prostitutes. The word "bouncer" was first popularized in a novel by Horatio Alger, called The Young Outlaw, which was first published in 1875. Alger was an immensely popular author in the 19th century, especially with young people and his books were widely quoted. In Chapter XIV, entitled "Bounced", a boy is thrown out of a restaurant because he has no money to pay for his meal:
An 1883 newspaper article stated that The Bouncer' is merely the English 'chucker out'. When liberty verges on license and gaiety on wanton delirium, the Bouncer selects the gayest of the gay, and—bounces him!"
19th century
In US Western towns in the 1870s, high-class brothels known as "good houses" or "parlour houses" hired bouncers for security and to prevent patrons from evading payment. "Good house"-style brothels "... considered themselves the cream of the crop, and [the prostitutes working there] scorned those who worked in (or out of) saloons, dance halls, and theatres." The best bordellos looked like respectable mansions, with attractively decorated parlours, a game room and a dance hall. For security, "somewhere in every parlor of the house there was always a bouncer, a giant of a man who stayed sober to handle any customer who got too rough with one of the girls or didn't want to pay his bill." The "protective presence" of bouncers in high-class brothels was "... one of the reasons the girls considered themselves superior to [lower-class] free-lancers, who lacked any such shepherds."
In Wisconsin's lumberjack days, bouncers would physically remove drinkers who were too drunk to keep buying drinks, and thus free up space in the bar for new patrons. The slang term 'snake-room' was used to describe a "...room off a saloon, usually two or three steps down, into which a bar-keeper or the bouncer could slide drunk lumber-jacks head first through swinging doors from the bar-room." In the late 19th century, until Prohibition, bouncers also had the unusual role of protecting the saloon's buffet. To attract business, "...many saloons lured customers with offers of a "free lunch"—usually well salted to inspire drinking, and the saloon "bouncer" was generally on hand to discourage [those with too] hearty appetites".
In the late 19th century, bouncers at small town dances and bars physically resolved disputes and removed troublemakers, without worrying about lawsuits. In the main bar in one Iowa town, "...there were many quarrels, many fights, but all were settled on the spot. There were no court costs [for the bouncers or the bar]; only some aches and pains [for the troublemakers]."
In the 1880s and 1890s, bouncers were used to maintain order in "The Gut", the roughest part of New York City's Coney Island, which was filled with "ramshackle groups of wooden shanties", bars, cabarets, fleabag hotels and brothels. Huge bouncers patrolled these venues of vice and "roughly ejected anyone who violated the loose rules of decorum" by engaging in pick-pocketing, jewelry thieving, or bloody fights.
During the 1890s, San Diego had a similarly rough waterfront area and red-light district called the 'Stingaree', where bouncers worked the door at brothels. Prostitutes worked at the area's 120 bawdy houses in small rooms, paying a fee to the procurer who usually was the bouncer or 'protector' of the brothel. The more expensive, higher-class brothels were called "parlour houses", and they were "run most decorously", and the "best of food and drink was served." To maintain the high-class atmosphere at these establishments, male patrons were expected to act like gentlemen; "... if any customer did or said anything out of line, he was asked to leave. A bouncer made sure he did".
20th century Bouncers in pre-World War I United States were also sometimes used as the guardians of morality. As ballroom dancing was often considered as an activity which could lead to immoral conduct if the dancers got too close, some of the more reputable venues had bouncers to remind patrons not to dance closer than nine inches to their partners. The bouncers' warnings tended to consist of light taps on the shoulder at first, and then progressed to sterner remonstrations.
In the 1930s, bars in the bawdiest parts of Baltimore, Maryland docks hired bouncers to maintain order and eject aggressive patrons. The Oasis club, operated by Max Cohen, hired "...a lady bouncer by the name of Mickey Steele, a six-foot acrobat from the Pennsylvania coal fields. Mickey was always considerate of the people she bounced; first asking them where they lived and then throwing them in that general direction. She was succeeded by a character known as 'Machine-Gun Butch' who was a long-time bouncer at the club".
In the Weimar Republic in the Germany of the 1920s and early 1930s, doormen protected venues from the fights caused by Nazis and other potentially violent groups (such as Communists). Such scenes were fictionalised in the movie Cabaret. Hitler surrounded himself with a number of former bouncers such as Christian Weber; the SS originated as a group designated to protect party meetings.
In early Nazi Germany, some bouncers in underground jazz clubs were also hired to screen for Nazi spies, because jazz was considered a "degenerate" form of music by the Nazi party. Later during the Nazi regime, bouncers also increasingly barred non-German people (such as foreign workers) from public functions, such as 'German' dances at dance halls.
Bouncers also often come into conflict with football hooligans, due to the tendency of groups of hooligans to congregate at pubs and bars before and after games. In the United Kingdom for example, long-running series of feuds between fan groups like The Blades and groups of bouncers in the 1990s were described by researchers.
Bouncers have also been known to be associated with criminal gangs, especially in places like Russia, Hong Kong or Japan, where bouncers may often belong to these groups or have to pay the crime syndicates to be able to operate. In Hong Kong, triad-connected reprisal or intimidation attacks against bouncers have been known to occur. Hong Kong also features a somewhat unusual situation where some bouncers are known to work for prostitutes, instead of being their pimps. Hong Kong police have noted that due to the letter of the law, they sometimes had to charge the bouncer for illegally extorting the women when the usually expected dominance situation between the sex worker and her "protector" was in fact reversed.