After a couple drinks at home, we head out to a bar to see an old local band. We pay our $20 cover charge – crazy, I know – I drink one beer, and head outside for a smoke. And when I go back in the guy at the door tells me I’m “swaying a bit” and won’t let me back in. Buddy stamped my hand not more than 10 minutes before – couldn’t you have told me I was too drunk before I paid the $20?? I don’t get out much, but isn’t a bar a place where people get intoxicated?
This article appears in Mar 27 – Apr 2, 2008.
First mistake was paying a $20 cover to see an old band. Sorry, it isn’t fair at all, but the bouncers probably just didn’t like the look of you.Halifax bouncers tend to be arrogant assholes.
Maybe they mistook you for a CFA and felt like being pricks, because apparently thats what we do. Pabst Blue Ribbon!
snip. “…isn’t a bar a place where people get intoxicated?” This is a popular misconception. Althought it is not illegal for bars to over serve customers, it is illegal in Halifax to be drunk in public so technically you are not allowed to get drunk at a bar. Fuckin weird eh?Once again though, bars are not publicly owned places, they are privately owned businesses and they can refuse you service/entry at any time for any reason (wihin limits). A door man can not say you’re fat or you are a visable monority so you can’t come in but a door man can say I don’t like the colour of your socks-you can’t come in, or, I think you are intoxicated and therefore I can not permit you to enter the premisis this evening. Now if you were swaying because, say, you have MS and normally walk with a sway or a limp, then you might be able to some sort of human rights organisation/govt. body and make a formal complaint.
True enough JamesK, but its annoying when you are not too drunk to get in until AFTER you pay your 20 bucks. I’d be pissed at that too.
i know of someone who left the palace drunk, walked about 10 ft and had cuffs slapped on for being “drunken in public”
Most Bouncers are Douche-Bags (PERIOD). Odd how that type mentality tend to flock to the employment of Bouncers, social retards. They are No Talent Ass-Clowns. I suspect it is heavy compensation for some sort of shortcoming in their childhood or their ever developing life. This is not limited to Halifax, it is at least a North American thing.