This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Red Shoe: I live in only a moderately large city, and every nightclub (and many of the more popular bars) has a bouncer. Unlike TV, though, their job isn't so much to gauge whether you're cool enough to get in, but to check your ID and draw a big X on your hand if you're under age. They also toss you out if you get rowdy.
Branfish: I was about to say exactly the same thing. Do we just live in very unusual cities, or should someone edit the entry? Where do you live? I'm English, so maybe they just don't have bouncers over in America.
Looney Toons: Remember, these are television and movie bouncers. They do not necessarily bear any resemblance to the real thing. That said, some clubs in New York City do use bouncers to screen incoming patrons for whatever reasons. The practice started, as I understand, with Studio 54 in the 1970s, when the owner empowered his bouncers as doormen and made admission to the discotheque arbitrarily selective (for non-celebrities at least). This was an intentional ploy to build up the mystique of the club, and it worked like a charm. It was subsequently copied by clubs all over the city and beyond, and the entire practice has become rooted in pop culture as the "usual" way things are done. (Which it isn't, of course, but it's often a useful device for a story.)
Ununnilium: Wow. Yoinking this for the entry.
Philweasel: Yeah, Chelmsford, England on a Friday night, every bar you see has a couple of BIG dudes in black suits and sunglasses at the door.
Da_Nuke: Alright, I just changed the "very big city" part with just "big city". I've seen these in Guadalajara, and though this is a big city with 4.5 million people, it's not a big sprawling metropolis either.
Morgan Wick: Except NY and LA are the only US cities that are bigger.
- Da_Nuke: Actually, Philadelphia, Houston and Chicago are bigger too. Guadalajara is roughly the same size as Phoenix. Oh, and it lies 300 km away from Puerto Vallarta, in the west coast of Mexico.
Jefepato: I've never lived in an even slightly large city, and 80% of the bars I've been to have had bouncers. While they certainly aren't the TV-style bouncers who only let cool people in, the first line is still definitely in error.
buttbutt: I lived in Boston, and only saw a bouncer at a bar once - and even THAT was an oddity, because I'd never seen one at that bar before, and I can't recall seeing one there any time after. On second thought, maybe he wasn't actually employed by the place, and just enjoyed looking at strangers' ID.
