The Philadelphia Daily News profiled two cases involving local area bouncers who were involved in violent altercations with bar patrons. A 2008 incident involved a bouncer who forcibly escorted a patron out a bar while almost severing his arm in the process; the patron sued the bar and bouncers for $545,000 and received a confidential settlement as a result. A 2009 incident involved two bouncers at a strip club who beat a patron to death; the two bouncers are awaiting trial for their role in the death.
The Daily News identified anabolic steroids as responsible for increasing the likelihood of violence and “roid rage” by bouncers; however, no evidence has been presented to suggest that the bouncers involved in the two aforementioned cases used anabolic steroids.
International studies show the need for increased regulation. A 2010 government study in Australia, for example, found that bouncers are responsible for one in eight assaults in pubs and clubs. And in more than two thirds of violent incidents involving bar bouncers in Toronto, Canada, the bouncers either enhanced the likelihood of violence or downright caused it through gratuitous aggression, harassment of patrons and provocative behavior, according to a 1998 study in the Journal of Drug Issues.
Some bouncers also rely on steroids to build muscles, experts say. But steroids can increase aggression, loosen users’ impulse control and lead to ” ‘roid rage,” so that interactions between steroid-bulked bouncers and cranky customers are more likely to end violently, said Geoff Gibbs, a former bouncer from California who founded www.bounceronline.net in 2003.
The problem with violent incidents involving night club security has not been given much attention by the news media in the United States but other countries have jumped all over the bouncer violence story. The Australian government has launched inquiries into the increasing number of violent incidents while highlighting the role of steroids. The president of the Gold Coast Medical Association has even made a full-on attack against “roid-rage induced violence” claiming that bouncers on steroids represent the area’s largest social problem.
About Millard Baker