Reading the Facebook post about the assault on a young man and woman by the bouncer at that bar on Argyle made my blood boil. This has gone on for far too long.
Here’s the thing, cops and bouncers are allowed to assault people if they are drunk, or if they perceive you to be drunk. All that matters is that you’re drunk and anything they feel like doing to you is justified. That’s the law.
This city’s downtown is probably 50% bars. Our economy relies on bars and licensed restaurants and their patrons, many of them students and young people. How can our government collect all the tax revenues, licensing fees and economic stimulus from these establishments and then in the next breath say that anyone who enters one of these places, legally purchases and consumes alcohol and then leaves is in violation of the law?
Can someone tell me why we really need a public drunkenness law? It takes a lot of a police officer’s time to arrest and book someone for being drunk, if more of them were on the streets ignoring that and instead focusing on preventing violence or intervening in fights or things of that nature I think the downtown area would be safer. I know people break the law when they are drunk, they disturb the peace, they assault people, they damage property, but we have laws against all those things. If someone is drunk (or sober of that matter) and doing any of those things they can be arrested just on those grounds. I don’t think this supposed prevention justifies giving police full right to arrest someone, usually very physically and violently, just because that person has consumed a legal and government regulated substance. You have to leave the bar at some point! How can you really avoid being intoxicated in public if you want to drink at a bar? It’s physically fucking impossible, people.
I also don’t understand why bouncers, who have no industry or government standards to adhere to, can’t be charged with assault in cases like these and why police will never arrest them even if they assault someone right in front of them. The person was drunk! That’s all that matters. In this particular case the cop refused to take statements against the bouncer, even from the writer of the article who does not drink. He’s a GD bouncer! Why the diplomatic immunity? A friend of mine’s father worked downtown for about 10 years, only once ever had to get physical with someone. He out him in a full nelson to restrain him. He didn’t have to body slam him, or smash his head into the pavement, or punch him. The problem is some (not all) of these guys now won’t try and talk to you first, and that’s accepted. Their judgement is never questioned. It’s appalling.
We need to stand up to this. People who spend their hard earned money supporting the economy and helping NSLC to have record quarters shouldn’t be open season for bullies.
So here’s a message to people like that bouncer, next time you feel like putting the boots to someone, or having two of you toss around a guy half the size of one of you, or provoking people by getting within inches of their face over something totally insignificant, or threatening to kill someone, or slamming a young man’s head off the cobblestone, or hitting a man in the face while he is on the ground, clearly unconscious (all things I’ve seen with my own eyes) just know that someone might be watching you, and keeping score. You might get to be in your victim’s shoes some day. —Not Gonna Take It Anymore, That’s a Promise
This article appears in Feb 14-20, 2013.
“Here’s the thing, cops and bouncers are allowed to assault people if they are drunk, or if they perceive you to be drunk. All that matters is that you’re drunk and anything they feel like doing to you is justified. That’s the law.”
No dummy, that’s NOT the law.
Before you rant, please – BE INFORMED – otherwise you look like a fool…
First of all there is no law stating cops and bouncers can assault drunks and there have been bouncers and cops who have been charged. I agree bouncers, who are for all intents and purposes, security guards should be licenced through the Department of Justice.
The thing that bothers me is that bouncers, and I have witnessed this on several occasions, take a hardlined approach and immediately provoke someone who is drunk, making the situation worse. If a little tact and patience are used, most reasonable people will leave under their own steam.
If you grab someone by surprise, put them in the full nelson, throw them outside in the cold and refuse to give them their jacket, what do you think is going to happen? It’s high time that bouncers are fully trained and held accountable to some rules of conduct, not given carte blanche like they have been up until now.
a). Stop drinking so fucking much in public. Drink at home like all normal alcoholics.
b). What Stephen said.
Amen, Harper!
In addition to Mister Meaty’s comment about being informed before you rant OP, you should probably read the follow up article written by JWC, as well as the HRP and the Carleton’s responses. At least do a bit of research before making specific accusations based on a single post that popped up on your Facebook newsfeed.
“If a little tact and patience are used, most reasonable people will leave under their own steam.”
That’s the crux of the matter. Drunks are not reasonable. If they were, bars wouldn’t require bouncers. And this is in no way an apologia for them, but you can’t explain or understand current “bouncer culture” without understanding current “drunk culture”. Take the indestructability of youth, graft it onto yet another generation that has only a passing familiarity with words like “No”, “Don’t” & “Can’t”, mix with alcohol and you have a recipe for trouble. Factor in the fact that most bouncers are from this milieu themselves and expecting reasonable behaviour from any of the parties involved is an exercise in self-delusion.
I don’t have an answer. Not one. I’d recommend that any bouncer charged with assault be subjected to a blood/urine test to determine exactly what cocktail of personality changing chemicals are in his sytem. But for that to happen, one would actually have to be charged. And that doesn’t happen often
I’d suggest voting with your wallet and avoiding the bars and clubs whose staff behave as if they are greeting the trains at Birkenau, but that’s hardly going to drive them out of business . It might keep your own face from greeting the cobblestones, though.
Did you miss this from the Carleton’s Facebook page? It was the doorman who was punched, not the patron.
“The Carleton has completed its investigation of the events of this Saturday night past. We have interviewed all the employees who were working, talked to the HPD and have heard from a number of our customers – some who are known to us and others who are not – who were actually present inside and outside the venue at the time.
The facts as presented in the statements we’ve gathered are quite different from the FaceBook account published by John Wesley Chisholm.
In brief, a customer was behaving inappropriately and in a manner which was disturbing other customers. He was asked politely to leave the premises and refused to do so in a timely fashion after repeated requests. He was then escorted to the door. Without warning or provocation he punched the doorman on the mouth drawing blood. The doorman did not retaliate but rather pushed the customer off the property.
The doorman went back inside the Carleton and closed the door. The customer returned aggressively into the bar. The Carleton’s doorman removed him outside and restrained him until the police, who had been called by a member of our staff, arrived. While he was restraining the customer our doorman was punched several times by a bystander.
It is also notable that, while John Wesley’s version of events would have us believe the patron in question was severely beaten, even horrifically so; he was not. He bears no injury whatsoever and has declined to press charges.
The Carleton believes its employees behaved lawfully and appropriately at all times. At no point did its doorman apply offensive force or any more force than necessary to remove the individual who, again, was unhurt.
Nevertheless we very much regret the incident and have reinforced to our staff the clear instructions we have in place for incidents such as this, regardless of how rare they are at our establishment. We will happily support those who are working towards standardizing training for employees who are charged with security duties and any other steps necessary to make our downtown a better and safer place to be.”
If you think it’s bad now, you should have been around in the 80’s. I remember the night a bouncer at a bar that rhymes with ‘Phallus’ threw some a guy into a parked car and cracked his skull. Good times…
Exactly, Nurse Hezz. Now, I don’t know all the specifics, BUT anyone remember the incident a while back where this guy said a bouncer assaulted him and posted his pic on FB and the horrid did a story on him and it turned out later that security footage shows him smashing his face on the sidewalk and that he never did get assaulted??
Perhaps not getting so piss drunk in public might solve some problems, as the lovely Donk suggested.
Of course people shouldn’t get shit faced in public but that shouldn’t give anybody the right to beat them up. That’s the point. Call me crazy but I’ll take the account of an impartial witness over that of a business with its reputation on the line. How do we know there wasn’t any hush money or anything else shady involved. It would be a little harder to believe if I hadn’t seen it myself countless times.
To address what you said Bro Tim, there’s no law stating that police can assault drunks, no, but being drunk in public is an arrestable offense and if they assault you in the process of arresting you, there’s nothing you can do because the fact that you were drunk makes you incredible. That’s what I’ve been told by the police. Ya smug old curmudgeon. Cops beat up drunks every night of the week, that’s no secret. Maybe some of the time those beatings are warranted but the way things are its impossible to hold someone accountable if they are not. It’s not right.