I Like It

Anti-riot grrls:

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.

Most women work as part of a staff that employs several men as well, should they have a need to call in back-up to forcibly remove a determinedly physical patron.

Though I’ve been to two clubs with great male bouncers who could diffuse a situation that surely would have gotten ugly had a classically gruff male bouncer tried to solve with sheer muscle, they were definitely a minority. (In more ways than one; they were both also gay.) More like them is a great idea. Bring on the Door Diplomats.

(Thanks to Mr. Shakes for passing that one along.)