Bouncers and Bodyguards

by Robin Barratt

  A few seconds later, I heard a man’s voice shout, ‘Stand up with your hands in the air!’ This, I must admit, I did not see coming. I automatically put the list in my mouth, chewed it and swallowed, as the last thing I needed was to end up in the police department with a list of number plates in my possession. And anyway, that is what I had read in the James Bond books: if spies were caught red-handed, they ate the evidence.

  Swallowing the last remains of the paper, I meekly edged my way out of the bushes, my face scratched by sharp thorns, my legs weak from sitting in one position for such a long time and my whole body shaking with fear. Never in my short life had I been in any kind of trouble with the police, and to find myself in this horrible situation was beyond my wildest imagination. As soon as the policeman saw me and my pitiful appearance, he understood that I was no threat. Standing next to him, shaking her wrinkly old fist at me, was the babushka.

  The policeman asked for my passport and demanded an explanation. I needed to find an excuse for why I had been sitting in the bushes. Saying that I had been having a shit was right out of the question, and the only thing I could immediately think of was that on my way to work I had been followed by a stranger. I had been scared and decided to hide in the bushes. I wasn’t sure whether they believed me or not. Frankly, I didn’t care – I just wanted the whole thing to end. After a stern warning, the policeman finally let me go.

  When I got home, I kept wondering how I was going to tell everybody at work what had happened and why I had so miserably failed on my very first security operation. I would have to think of something to tell my boss, so I decided to make up car number plates and hope for the best.

  The next day, when we all compared our lists, it turned out that the client’s car had not been followed after all . . . or maybe it had been? Thankfully, he went on to spend many more happy years in Russia.

  The moral of the story is never to piss or shit in the bushes, as there will always be a babushka on guard! And so much for my covert surveillance skills!

  BIOGRAPHY OF INNA ZABRODSKAYA

  Originally from Moscow, Inna moved to England in 2003. She has worked in the security industry on and off since 1998, first for BLM Security Management Consultants, where she was the personal assistant to the ex-KGB director, and then for a short time as the assistant to the director of the Russian branch of the Olive Group. Inna has spent many years researching and compiling business intelligence reports for foreign clients on the Russian Federation, as well as being involved in a large number of security and investigative operations. However, she has refrained from doing any operation that might include bushes and number plates, and always tries to use public toilets, despite their horrendous state.

  Inna currently provides Russian translation services for the security and investigation industry, and runs the membership section of the British Bodyguard Association. She can be contacted at invazab@yahoo.com

  12

  SO, WHO WANTS TO BE A BOUNCER?

  BY ANDY WALKER

  Just before I left school in west London in 1980, my contemporaries and I all had to suffer a visit to the careers officer. ‘And what do you plan to do with the rest of your life?’ I was asked. Luckily, I already had a cunning plan: I was going to join the army, get a trade and see the world – hopefully at the same time as drinking lots of beer and meeting pretty girls! Other mates wanted a career in law, banking or industry, while others still hoped to earn their fortunes with a trade such as carpentry or plumbing. Obviously, we all discussed our career plans, but I don’t remember anyone ever saying, ‘I want to be a bouncer when I leave school.’ Not even the ‘big boys’ amongst us ever considered working the doors as a possible career path, and it was certainly never mentioned as a possibility by the careers officer.

  It wasn’t until I was well and truly ensconced in basic training up in sunny North Yorkshire and was finally let loose at the weekends on the unsuspecting northern pub and club scene that I first came across a bouncer. Remember, this was in 1980, before we had ever heard of such a thing as a ‘door supervisor’. There was no training, no registration or licensing system, and most doormen in those days were what we would now call old school. They were normally large, strong men, very rarely with a neck or any hair to speak of, and they usually gave off a menacing air of authority that definitely helped ensure that young bucks like me behaved themselves on their premises. The uniform was pretty standard, too: shiny black shoes, black dinner suit, white shirt and black dicky bow. In the winter, this would all be neatly hidden under a long Crombie-style black overcoat and a pair of black leather gloves.

  These were not men to mess with. I still remember the distinct feeling of nervous trepidation on a Friday and a Saturday night as I approached the black-and-white guardians of the door, never certain whether I would be able to convince them I was such a nice guy that they simply had to let me in. Sometimes I got in; other times I was made to skulk off into the night to try to find somewhere more accommodating to drink.

  WHAT IS A BOUNCER?

  Twenty-five years ago, bouncers were usually only found outside the larger nightclubs and dance halls. Today, however, they can be found outside most pubs and clubs in our major towns and cities, and are now even used to protect late-night restaurants, takeaways and shops. Some local-council crime-prevention schemes even use bouncers to patrol town centres and taxi ranks, and there are a couple of schemes that use them to travel on late-night buses to prevent disorder and protect clubbers on their way home.

  Door supervisors, as bouncers are now called, are usually hired to protect the staff and property of licensed premises and to look after the safety of the customers who use them. They now fulfil many of the general functions that you would expect to be carried out by uniformed security staff in shopping centres. The main difference between these two sectors of the private security industry is the type of people who tend to do the job. Door supervisors, as a rule, have to deal with potentially far more violent confrontations with the public than most uniformed security guards will ever have to in the normal course of their duties, so the physical and mental attributes of bouncers tend to reflect their ability to deal with such situations. Therefore, door supervisors are usually well built and physically fit, attributes not always seen in the uniformed sector.

  As the result of the confrontations that inevitably occur at premises that supply alcohol, door supervisors generally have to exercise their statutory and common-law rights to use force more regularly than security workers in other sectors. This is why bouncers have unfortunately acquired a bad reputation in the past, with allegations of unwarranted or excessive force being applied to customers.

  An academic study in 1998 explained that the stereotype of a bouncer was perpetuated by the media. In some newspapers, they had been described as ‘gorillas in suits’ and ‘Rottweilers in bow ties’, and various television programmes reinforced the perception of bouncers being men of enormous proportions, low intelligence and a propensity for violence. The author of that work also reported that studies and observations made in 1988 and 1989 described the typical characteristics of a doorman as being ‘masculine, of large stature, aged 26–35 years, has non-verbal control in antagonistic encounters, exerts anger-threat controls against persistent individuals, has fighting ability, a reputation for viciousness, and forms a visible coalition with other doormen when threatened’.

  In 1995, a Home Office circular, giving advice to local authorities wishing to set up door supervisor registration schemes in their areas, defined a door supervisor as ‘a person employed on premises which have a music and dancing licence in operation, with authority from the owner or landlord exclusively or mainly to decide upon the suitability of customers to be allowed on those premises; and/or to maintain order on those premises’. This definition was widely used by council- and police-run registration schemes throughout the 1990s until it was superseded by the definition provided by the Private Security Industry Act, 2001.

 
WHAT DO BOUNCERS DO?

  Thankfully, in most areas, the days when doormen were hired at only the most unruly of pubs and clubs to stop fights, to protect the licensee and to administer their own brand of summary justice to customers who dared to breach the rules of the house are long gone. Professional door supervisors are now considered an essential part of many well-run establishments, ensuring a safer environment in which customers are free to enjoy themselves. Their duties now extend far beyond simply ejecting drunks and preventing disorder, although these elements are still essential to the proper management of any licensed premises. Today’s door supervisors are the eyes and the ears of the licensee, and, as such, are expected to become involved in the many different aspects of running premises designed for entertainment. They are expected to properly welcome customers onto the premises, whilst at the same time enforcing the venue’s entry conditions in a firm but fair manner. Once those customers are inside the premises, door staff are expected to ensure that the evening runs according to everyone’s expectations, at the same time maintaining order and preventing breaches of criminal and licensing laws and house rules. If any of those laws or rules are breached, they need to act within the guidelines of the law and company policy to resolve the situation.

  Occasionally, as part of the customer services element of the job, door supervisors may be required to administer first aid to anyone who becomes ill or injured on the premises before medical help arrives. They are also required to patrol the premises and to look out for fire hazards or suspicious packages, and need to be able to carry out basic emergency procedures if problems occur. They now have to be aware of basic heath-and-safety rules and must help the licensee to ensure that the venue is safe enough to be open to the public. Whilst fulfilling all of these functions, door supervisors are also required to be pleasant and polite so that the customers feel welcome. They therefore need to use effective communication and social skills in everything that they do.

  The basic job requirements of modern-day door supervisors are much more than they were only twenty years ago, a point reflected in the four-day basic training programme that all entrants to the game need to complete prior to applying for their licence to work in the industry. Door supervisors basically ‘police’ a venue on behalf of its management.

  HOW MANY DOOR SUPERVISORS ARE THERE?

  Some door supervisors work for large leisure organisations, some for leisure security companies and others are classed as in-house, meaning that they are hired or employed directly by the licensee of the premises. Some work at pubs or in wine bars, some at clubs and others at restaurants, casinos, amusement arcades and even cinemas. Some door supervisors work part time, some full time and others only occasionally at one-off events. Some of this work is done legitimately with the appropriate tax and national insurance being paid to the treasury; some of it is still done cash in hand and without the proper declaration of earnings.

  It is difficult to give an accurate figure of how many door supervisors there are working in the UK at present. Back in 1999, I carried out some research for the Home Office on the subject and from that estimated that there were about 100,000. However, under the current national licensing system, only 86,000 door supervisors have been granted an SIA licence (statistic dated August 2007), although double that figure have sat for the qualifications required to gain a licence.

  WHAT TYPE OF PERSON WORKS THE DOORS?

  In 1999, I carried out a nationwide survey on the door supervision sector, interviewing 500 door supervisors. That research showed that 93 per cent of door supervisors were male and covered a fairly wide age range. About 75 per cent of door supervisors at that time classed themselves as ‘white European’, with 49 per cent of them educated to just O Level standard.

  As local registration schemes had already come into force in about two-thirds of England and Wales, we asked the candidates what they preferred to call themselves. Over half (54 per cent) called themselves ‘door supervisors’, with 31 per cent preferring the term ‘doorman’. Only 3 per cent used the term ‘bouncer’. One interviewee described himself as an ‘ejection technician’ and two called themselves ‘in-house behavioural therapists’! Only 27 per cent said that they worked full time as a door supervisor, 72 per cent claiming part time only (1 per cent failed to answer the question).

  When asked why they worked the doors, 27 per cent said they did so as their primary source of income, 52 per cent explained that they did so to supplement their day job, 7 per cent to supplement state benefits and 10 per cent to help pay them through further education. When asked how long they had been working as a door supervisor, 21 per cent said for less than a year, 45 per cent for between one and five years, 16 per cent for six to ten years and only 6 per cent said that they had been in the door game for more than 15 years. Of those surveyed, 36 per cent said that they were employed in-house by the venue, and 62 per cent said that they worked for a leisure security company.

  At the time of the survey, 76 per cent were registered with one or more of the local-authority door-supervisor registration schemes, and 71 per cent of those surveyed said that they thought that such schemes were a good idea. Out of the 500 door supervisors surveyed, 90 per cent wanted to see a national registration or licensing scheme brought in. It would be interesting to see whether the SIA national licensing system has changed people’s opinions.

  THE OLD REGISTRATION SCHEMES

  In the late 1980s and early ’90s, various forward-thinking local authorities and police forces started their own door-supervisor registration schemes. These schemes enabled them to vet, train and monitor the activities of their local pub and club doormen. These schemes were set up with the intention of:

  securing and maintaining a degree of legal controls over door supervisors

  having some control over who was employed as a door supervisor in that area

  changing a general feeling of dissatisfaction with the attitude and behaviour of some door supervisors

  reducing the number of complaints by customers about door supervisors

  reducing incidents of violence and disorderly behaviour in and around licensed premises

  reducing the rates of assault allegations against door supervisors

  deterring door supervisors from acting aggressively and/or illegally

  preventing incidents of door supervisors dealing in controlled drugs

  reducing underage drinking and drug abuse on licensed premises

  enhancing the status of door supervisors through vetting, training and making them more accountable

  reducing problems of security agency cartels, intimidation of licensees and inter-agency violence

  promoting better relations between the police and door supervisors

  reassuring customers that action was being taken to control the actions and behaviour of door supervisors

  improving the safety of persons attending the premises for entertainment.

  About 65 per cent of England and Wales was covered by one registration scheme or another by the year 2000, and these schemes were hailed as a great success. Areas that had initiated such schemes saw a reduction in problems on licensed premises, particularly those involving door staff, with police forces all over the UK boasting impressive reductions in relevant crimes in those districts.

  The only problem with these local registration schemes was that each area decided on its own vetting criteria, training criteria, licensing system and costs. For example, in London many door supervisors who worked for leisure security companies found themselves in the situation that they had to apply and pay for several different licences to cover them to work in several different areas. I once met a doorman in London who was the proud owner of 17 local authority licences!

  NATIONAL LICENSING

  As the result of calls from the press, the public and the industry itself, the government decided to regulate the whole of the UK private security industry, and in 2001 the Private Security Industry Act was passed, which allowed the Home
Office to form a new independent body to bring about a national licensing system for people and companies in the security sector. As well as issuing licences, that body also became responsible for raising standards of training and professionalism across the industry and to reassure the public by preventing unsuitable people from carrying out security work. That body is called the SIA.

  In March 2004, the SIA opened its doors for business. Door supervisors were now able to apply for a licence, and the initial requirement was that every single doorman, whether they worked in-house or for a security company, was to be licensed by April 2005. That deadline was extended several times, but it is now illegal for anyone to work in a security role without a licence on licensed premises anywhere in England and Wales. (Licensing has recently been launched in Scotland and will be followed up in the years to come in Northern Ireland.)

  To get an SIA licence, applicants have to attend the national four-day basic training programme, which must be held by an awarding-body-approved training centre, leading to the national Level 2 qualification in door supervision. Once applicants have received their formal training qualification certificate, they can submit their application form to the SIA with a payment of £245 and an accompanying identification document. A criminal record check is then conducted and ‘suitable’ applicants are issued with their three-year SIA door supervisors’ licence. This licence allows them to work legally on any licensed premises in the UK until such time as that licence either runs out or is suspended or revoked.