Police Say Bouncers in Chapel Hill Not a Threat
By Tara Higgerson

Franklin Street is famous for its bars and restaurants. Several nights a week these places are packed. Many owners have hired bouncers to keep the peace, but with no state regulation or formal training, they could cause more harm than good.

It’s a familiar scene for many college students: Friends, alcohol and bars. But a good time can suddenly become a dangerous situation.

“The guy hit his girlfriend in the face and knocked her over, at which point I ran out with another bouncer and threw him down into a submission hold until the cops came,” said Daniel Quinones, who has worked as a bouncer at several Chapel Hill clubs and bars. He says it’s not unusual for him to get physical.

“If it gets to the point where you can’t diffuse the situation and someone is going to hurt a lot of people, you just have to use your physical force to get them out of there as quickly as possible,” Quinones said.

Bouncers say their job is to prevent any potentially dangerous situations. Bouncer and body builder Eric Gibbs says they need more than just big muscles to be a good bouncer.

“It’s not just the fact that they look intimidating, but the fact that they do have a level head and can control themselves in a way that if something like that should happen they can gain control in a quick manner,” Gibbs said.

But Chapel Hill Police Sgt. Allison Finch says not all bouncers take the same approach.

“It’s not common, but it has happened when a bouncer has probably stepped over the line and become more of the abuser than the fixer,” Finch said. In an escalated situation, Quinones and Gibbs admit bouncers can lose their cool. That could be because in North Carolina, bouncers aren’t required to have any formal training.

“[There’s] never really any paperwork. They sit down and tell you what they expect of you—no throwing punches—they let you know what you can do, what you can’t do,” Quinones said.

“A lot of times it is usually an under-the-table type of job. There are no taxes usually paid out on it,” Gibbs said. And the money is decent—about $50 a night.

Carolina Week wanted to know if unlicensed bouncers create problems. Finch said not often.

“I think Chapel Hill has some of the very best bouncers,” Finch said. “We have some that have been in the area and doing the job for a long time and they really know the job inside and out, and they’re very professional,” she explained. Nevertheless, owners of East End Martini Bar said they’re not taking their chances with a bouncer, so they hire an off-duty police officer to monitor the door.

“It’s been my experience in the past that bouncers have wanted to escalate a situation a little bit further than it should be. A lot of them are larger guys that kind of want to grab and get physical really quick, whereas the police officers don’t tend to do that,” said Howard McDonald, the co-owner of East End Martini Bar on Franklin Street.

The Chapel Hill Police Department says they receive at least one phone call each weekend from a club or restaurant to handle a tough situation—and it’s usually a patron who’s being too rowdy and not the bouncer.

The obvious difference between police and bouncers is that police officers have been trained to handle tough situations. With bouncers, it’s often just on-the-job training.