Friday night feralness

Last night was an unusual one - there weren't that many people out, but the ones that were out qualfied to be included in a general population cull for the good of the rest of mankind.

Worked an upmarket bar, where normally nothing EVER happens - except for last night...

First up, a group of three doctors came in and drank far too much, causing one of their number to fall over onto a table, smashing a wine glass and getting wine shards into his hands. The bar manager came out after hearing the commotion, and identified the fallen male as one for whom another in the group had vouched for as having had 'only one drink'. This may have been a correct assertion had the 'one drink' been served in a two litre wine glass. The bar manager approached the doctor whom had 'vouched', who did not take kindly to being asked why this apparently incredibly sober male was now lying on the floor next to an upturned table and a broken wine glass. He pulled out his wallet and an identification card, that identified him as a doctor employed by the police academy. In this doctor's mind, this apparently granted him the sworn powers of a police officer, and qualified him to make judgement calls on licensing issues. He accused us of being overcrowded and breaching the licensing requirements, pulling out his mobile to phone someone as he did so. After hanging up, the phone conversation went like this:

Doctor: "You're only licensed for 123 people."
Bar manager: "Ummm.... it's actually 146."
Doctor: "Bullshit. It's 123, you're overcrowded and you're going to lose your licence."
Bar manager: "I'll go do a count." (wanders off)

Accusing the bar manager of kicking him out, when no such activity had occurred, he walked out of the bar on his phone. I followed him back to the door and stood there, watching as he mumbled something about 'overcrowding' to someone on the other end. Whoever he spoke to clearly didn't want to know, as he wandered off and didn't return. It was probably for the best, as had anyone turned up to follow up on the inquiry, the doctor would have had to account for why, when he was so adamant the place was in breach of its licensing obligations, he was so insistent on breaking the law by getting his intoxicated friend to remain on the premises.

Next, a group of three were cut off from the bar and became abusive towards staff. They left shortly after, but ended up getting back in as I didn't match up the description given with the people properly. Not to worry, they'd be in and out all night, it would seem. So, one by one, as they filtered out to the smoking area for a cigarette, they were politely but firmly denied re-entry. All but one objected, who wanted to go back in just to give his keys to his girlfriend. Knowing that he'd use this as an excuse to get inside then stay, I went with him. Sure enough, after handing the keys over he started an in-depth conversation with his better half. I interrupted and told him he had to leave, that I, by rights, should not have let him back in at all and was doing him a favour, and he had now fulfilled the task for which he was granted re-entry. He argued that he should be allowed to stay as he wasn't drinking anymore. I told him that wouldn't cut it, and that we were legally obliged to ensure people who were intoxicated did not remain on the premises, especially those who had been cut off from the bar! His girlfriend persuaded him to finish their conversation outside, and he went with her reluctantly. Had she not done that he would have been physically escorted out.

The bar closed and I jogged down to a club in the city centre's main clubbing district to pick up a couple of extra hours. Jogging in boots, trousers and jacket is far more tiring than jogging in sporting gear!

At the club, I was posted in their live band area. Within 15 minutes, a guy was acting up, jumping on stage and dancing. A colleague got him down, then, when his back was turned, the guy gave him the figure. This display of petulant arrogance would not go unchallenged, and I made my way across to my colleague to summon his help with removing the prat from the premises. Just then, another colleague arrived on scene, roving around. Telling him what had happened, he approached the prat and asked him to leave. Prat was refusing, and as my colleague went to take the prat's drink out of his hands to help effect the removal, prat threw the drink at my collaegue and swung at him. Well, that's it, noone starts on our boys or girls! Three of us jumped on him. He was a big bloke and was throwing himself around trying to get us off him. My colleague headlocked him, and prat grabbed the locking arm with his arm to try and get it off his neck. I grabbed prat's arm and fingerlocked him, pulling his arm up and behind his head. Prat threw his body forward to try and get free. Fuck it, we're going to have to floor him in front of several hundred people. We got him on the ground, but he rolled onto his front and tried to grab my leg and pull it out from under me. Lucky for him that I kept my balance, otherwise I would have collapsed my entire body weight on one knee, which was directly above his face. That would have hurt in the morning. He was endangering himself as well as us, and it shouldn't take three of us to restrain this guy. We get him on his back, one colleague pinned his leagues, the other his torso and arms and I place my knee on the side of his head and held it in place. He wasn't going anywhere now. Some of his mates tried to intervene, but were pushed back by colleagues who had arrived to assist. When the three of us decided that he wasn't going to struggle as much, we got him up. That is, we tried, as he was trying to be a dead weight Colleagues got one arm each and pulled him to his knees, but then he started violently thrashing about again. He ended up being dragged out with all four limbs carried by security. Afterwards, he apparently went around the front and start a fight at the front door. Dickhead.

At the end of the night, I was tasked with standing out the front of the club to ensure that no idiots went onto the road unncessarily. Personally I think some of them could do with being cleaned up by a taxi, but if someone gets hit it clogs the road up and causes delays, which means more drunken idiots hanging around for longer and not going home, getting agitated and starting fights. Some got on the road, others argued, one idiot told me to 'Fuck off and keep walking, cunt". I secretly hoped he'd either be hit by a car or one of the drunken aggressive idiots that dotted the street would see fit to king hit him. Sadly neither happened. That's the thing about this job - idiots like that wind you up, quite intensely, for a few minutes, then you forget it even happened just 5 or 10 minutes after.

Same bars tonight - let's hope there's not as many idiots out tonight.