Newsweek

 

USA

Tuesday, 1 July 2008

 

Security: She's a 'Door Person'
 

It's a common problem in the nightclub industry: the burly bouncer meets the intoxicated patron, male egos flare and someone gets hurt. Solution? Less testosterone. At least that's the thinking of a growing number of club owners now employing females for security jobs, arguing that women are better at settling disputes verbally and are less vulnerable to harassment charges when attending to female guests. "The age of big thugs is gone," says Robert Smith, a San Diego-based nightclub-security consultant.

 

When Stacey Brown, who runs security at San Diego's Olé Madrid, sought a security job six years ago, she says she was "straight-out laughed at." Now some 10 percent of the officers at XL Staffing & Security of San Diego, which supplies guards for 27 clubs in southern California, are female. Even the traditional nomenclature--"bouncers"--is changing, says club co-owner Alan Seymour, whose Palm Springs, Calif., bar has two female "door people."

Still, some observers of physics may doubt a woman's ability to eject a larger male patron. If it comes to that, there's safety in numbers--most women work on staff with several men. Some have faith in their own skills. "You're gonna leave whether you like it or not," says Amber Ingalls, security supervisor at Chilkoot Charlie's nightclub in Anchorage, Alaska. "I will make you leave."