Once again, New Yorkers are appalled at the level of violence the Big Apple has been experiencing of late with the death of a bouncer who on Christmas Eve, was punched out by an angry patron. Duane Patterson succumbed to his injuries after remaining in a coma for days.
Once again, New Yorkers are appalled at the level of violence the Big Apple has been experiencing of late with the death of a bouncer who on Christmas Eve, was punched out by an angry patron. Duane Patterson succumbed to his injuries after remaining in a coma for days.
I am hardly a stranger to the Billymark Bar where the fight took place. I was a cab driver who had two friends living in single-room occupancy housing just a half block away and was equally aware that Billymark’s was ground zero for ho’s and their pimps from driving streetlife to the oasis in my taxi on several occasions. Frequently, I’d pull over for a girl waving only to have her “manager” jump out from behind a parked car to join her and request the Billymark as their destination.
Once or twice I even went into the joint at the suggestion of one of my friends. But I never remained for more than one drink. It was clearly a dangerous place. You could say the wrong thing or look at somebody the wrong way and before you knew it, you’d better be ready to fight.
One of those cabby friends took a job as a bouncer at yet another marginal establishment in the neighborhood. I told him he was crazy.
“You could get seriously hurt, Mikey,” I chided my old pal, who was big but not really all that tough.
Two weeks later, one of the other bouncers at the same bar did get seriously hurt in a brawl. Mikey called me to break the news — and add that he’d decided to quit. Twenty-five years later, he’s still alive.
Another guy I knew from one of my East Village neighborhood watering holes became a steady late-night fare. Stan was a macho guy who thought he was bulletproof. Then one night, he got slugged from behind with a beer mug and suffered a broken jaw. He never saw it coming.
And back in those days, my taxi employer hired an ex-cop as security for the garage after he was robbed on Memorial Day weekend. Mike (yes, he was named Mike as well) and I became friendly. And when I asked him how he got a long scar on his neck I assumed was a result of his police work, Mike responded in the negative, explaining that a bar patron had broken off a plastic beer pitcher in his neck. As a retired policeman who’d done his 20 years, Mike never pulled his gun from its holster once. But bouncing at a bar? That’s where he had his most dangerous physical encounter.
Bouncing at a bar is serious business — and anybody who takes that job ought to think twice before doing so. Even tough guys can catch a beating. I’m surprised bouncers don’t have some sort of union — and aren’t paid better than they are.
According to indeed.com, the average wage for a bouncer in New York City is only slightly above the legal minimum. Given the inherent danger in the job — and the anecdotal realities I just related — that seems like awfully low compensation for guys whose job it is to keep tax-paying New Yorkers safe while they party.
So why don’t bouncers have a union to protect their interests? First, bouncers are generally hired by individual business owners, a situation that doesn’t lend itself to multiple workers of the same type getting together under one roof.
Unlike security guards who are licensed, bonded, working for big corporations, background-checked, and often unionized, bouncers rarely suffer background checks many would fail. Tough guys are what they are — and often run afoul of the law. Finding employment as a bouncer is often an avenue toward legal employment for a marginal citizen.
Add on that bouncers have been known to be off-duty cops moonlighting against department policy for cash — as was the case of the guy who took the beating that made my friend Mikey have second thoughts about his new occupation — and what you have is a closeted workforce that would rather fly under the radar. Unionizing would be anathema for the crew.
Still, maybe the time has come to turn bar-bouncing into legitimate unionized employment. A union (just for example) could dictate that bouncers can’t work alone. They have to be employed in pairs so one can have the other’s back. With a contingency like that, chances are Duane Patterson would be alive today.
Duane Patterson should be a cautionary tale — not just for those who would take that job — but elected officials whose job it is to keep a lid on violent crime in New York City as well. Even allowing somebody to work legally for just above the minimum wage at a job at which he could get maimed or even killed makes no sense.
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