A drunk, a security guard, and an academic walk into a bar…

Source: Ottawa Citizen, Sunday, June 8, 2008

No, but seriously: Bouncers may be unlikely subjects for scholarly research, yet a Carleton prof insists these ‘gatekeepers of urban cool’ reveal much about cities that never sleep
BY DON BUTLER
George Rigakos used to like going to nightclubs. But that was before the Carleton University professor spent too many late nights in clubs from Halifax to Vancouver, researching his new book, Nightclub: Bouncers, Risk and the Spectacle of Consumption.

He was often depressed by what he observed. There was the inevitable violence, of course. “I’ve seen people get hurt, get bloodied badly, and it would happen routinely and predictably.”

Even without fisticuffs, nightclubs are rife with violent vibes, including rampant “optic violence” such as leering, baleful stares and “cut eye” — disdainful, dismissive looks.

“Other than a prison, in what place other than a nightclub is stepping on someone’s shoes or looking at them the wrong way grounds for assault?” Mr. Rigakos asks. Nightclubs also reinforce gender, class and race divisions, he says, by celebrating hegemonic masculinity and femininity, creating red-roped VIP pens for the privileged and imposing racially exclusionary dress codes and music choices.

Finally, there’s the in-your-face surveillance — the CCTV cameras, patdowns and ID checks, even metal detectors — and the deliberate way clubs deploy deafening music and lighting to reduce patrons to blank screens onto which others can project their desires.

It’s all aimed at producing a “synoptic frenzy,” Mr. Rigakos says, with club-goers devouring one another as objects of aesthetic consumption.

Then there are nightclub patrons — booze-emboldened males on the prowl for a near-mythical one-night stand, flirtatious females eager to be desired, but rarely interested in bedding a stranger.

Assume the bouncer position

Both are “players,” Mr. Rigakos says, the women playing the men for attention and material gain, the men playing the women for sex. Both shamelessly use manipulation, seduction and deceit in pursuit of their goals.

In an epilogue to his book, Mr. Rigakos recounts a nightclub coatcheck girl’s conclusion that he’s a player hater — or playa hata, as he initially hears it in the din of the club.

Guilty as charged, he confesses. “I wrote that epilogue because I had already developed a negative feeling about nightclubs long before I started writing the book. There’s almost no incentive for me to go back into a nightclub unless in support of other researchers or students.”

Nightclubs and bouncers might seem unlikely subjects for scholarly research. And indeed, Mr. Rigakos’s book is the first such academic study in Canada.

That’s curious, he says, because nightclubs occupy a central place in the burgeoning nighttime economy. And bouncers, who determine who gets in and who gets turned away, are emerging as the “new gatekeepers of urban cool.”

Cities everywhere have embraced the idea of the 24-hour city, built around a lively entertainment district, as a way of revitalizing moribund downtowns. It appears to be working. In Philadelphia, for example, the average annual income of inner-city dwellers is now $87,000, and 85 per cent have a college education.

Along with the 24-hour city has come a huge increase in private policing. In Canada, there are now three private security guards for every police officer, says Mr. Rigakos, an associate professor of law, criminology and political economy at Carleton.

The lines between private and public security are increasingly being blurred. At certain times of night, the number of uniformed police officers paid by nightclubs to provide security may exceed the number on regular patrol in the downtown core, Mr. Rigakos says.

Even officers who aren’t on paid duty for nightclubs routinely find themselves cleaning up a nightclub’s mess as drunken, quarrelsome patrons spill out into the streets. “In Ottawa on a Saturday night you have half a dozen officers at least in the downtown core, just waiting for something to happen outside of a nightclub,” Mr. Rigakos says.

The police role raises questions about conflict of interest, he says. “Are they working for the public good, or are they working for the private interests of the nightclub owner?”

Bouncers play a central role because they control admission to the clubs and the sidewalks outside them, where patrons are required to wait in often-artificial queues.

To a large extent, bouncers determine who gets arrested, Mr. Rigakos says, because they turn belligerent patrons over to police waiting outside.

But there are distinct differences between bouncer and police culture, he found. Bouncers are more socially liberal, because they’re usually young — many are moonlighting university students — and involved in the “transgressions of the night.”

They’re more insular and alienated than police officers, and far more likely to harbour “us-versus-them” attitudes. Some become misanthropes, with contempt for the patrons they are charged with overseeing. “I’m an adult babysitter,” sneers one bouncer quoted in the book. “Make sure the babies don’t fight.”

Experienced bouncers, Mr. Rigakos says, “are the biggest player haters of them all. They are weary of the game of the nightclub.”

Bouncers also see violence on a nightly basis in a way that police officers don’t, he says. “We wound up finding that bouncers experience more workplace violence than police officers.”

The time of greatest risk for bouncers is when they leave at the end of a shift, and might be attacked by disgruntled patrons they have ejected.

Bouncers also fear revenge attacks when they’re off the job. “We were told a number of times about bouncers being attacked at the subway or being approached at the mall while they’re strolling with their family,” says Mr. Rigakos.

This violence-soaked environment can leave permanent psychological scars. “One bouncer was telling us how he would stand up against the wall and assume the bouncer position, even when he wasn’t working,” Mr. Rigakos recalls.

Bouncers feel misunderstood and under-appreciated, vilified as “meatheads” pumped up on steroids, he reports. A few fit that stereotype, he acknowledges. “In some cases, these guys, they’re itching for a fight. In some cases, they’re actually involved in the illicit drug trade.”

But other bouncers, especially those employed by corporations concerned about liability, have had background screening and training in a range of areas.

Mr. Rigakos suggests bouncing may be one of the few jobs still available to young, blue-collar males who formerly found employment in the nation’s disappearing factories.“It’s really sexy to work in the nightclub industry. It’s a macho job, just like a dock worker. You get close to celebrities and you’re sort of in the action.”

Bouncers are part of an emerging new “international proletarian security force” — Mr. Rigakos admits the characterization may be a bit romantic — that is playing an increasingly important economic role.

“What would happen if they all walked off the job some Saturday night?” he asks. “It would shut down the nighttime economy.”

While there’s little dispute that nightclubs create an invigorating urban buzz, Mr. Rigakos wonders why the 24-hour city has to be built on trangressional nightclub spaces.

“I’m not against entertainment zones,” he says, “but why does it have to be an emerging global monoculture of this youth-oriented, alcohol-fuelled activity?

“There’s a lot of different things you can do in a downtown area that don’t necessarily have to rely on nightclubs. People would go to nighttime festivals, family-oriented events or 24hour outdoor film festivals.”

But judging from the reaction of two young assistants who helped with his research, Mr. Rigakos may be fighting a losing battle. “They sat around in nightclubs taking notes for 18 bucks an hour,” he says. “They told me it was the best gig they ever had.”