# doorstaff question.



## Testoholic (Jun 13, 2009)

one for fellow doorman, what is the legal requirement of doorman for number of people in a venue? i thought it was 2 doorstaff for first 100 punters then 1 more doorman for every extra 100?

reason i ask is worked at a night club saturday night, we had 200 people in the club with just 2 doormen and wasnt happy about it but management insisted it was 'fine'..!!


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## bigjonny (Jan 6, 2009)

don't take my word for it but sure a nightclub can have as little door staff on as the management wants but with a pub its different , with licencesing laws have to have so many staff to customers


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## gumballdom (Dec 14, 2008)

nightclubs are still restricted to number of persons just like bars and pubs etc. your correct in thinking its 2 doorman for the first 100 and then 1 doorman for each additional 100 customers. for example when oceana opened in southampton it has a capacity of just over 4000 and they had 43 doorman on. however if the manager doesnt think the club will reach capacity then they dont have to have all 43 doorman on, as a result they arent 'supposed' to go over the limit that they have enough staff for eg they think they will only have 2000 customers so will have 21 doorman on.


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## BigStew (May 6, 2008)

I'm sure that each individual venue's licensing agreement with the local authority/police determines how many doormen they should have.


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## kgb (Sep 13, 2009)

BigStew said:


> I'm sure that each individual venue's licensing agreement with the local authority/police determines how many doormen they should have.


I've heard this to


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## mrbez (Feb 8, 2008)

Plus mate as you have found out, you will hardly ever have too many on the door, or the amount you could do with for that matter.

What is the venue like? What is the crowd like?


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## BLUE(UK) (Jan 9, 2008)

There is no law as such,only guidelines which are as you described.

Saying that,as was said before,the local licencing persons can insist on the venue having x amount door supervisors on as part of the licence agreement. Also the police can have a say or give warning to the landlord to up their security or they wont be in their favour come licencing time(they can revoke a licence if persistant trouble is there).


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## evad (Mar 17, 2008)

the general rule at the moment is to see how many doorstaff are needed on a venue and quite literally halve it

this is a typical management way of trying to save money however anyone that has done the doors will agree that this leads to a slippery slope


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## Testoholic (Jun 13, 2009)

BLUE(UK) said:


> There is no law as such,only guidelines which are as you described.
> 
> Saying that,as was said before,the local licencing persons can insist on the venue having x amount door supervisors on as part of the licence agreement. Also the police can have a say or give warning to the landlord to up their security or they wont be in their favour come licencing time(they can revoke a licence if persistant trouble is there).


cheers for the reply, i want sure if it was a rule or a guidline, theres another club in town half our size but because of its location (up a narrow flight of stairs) it has written into its licence it must have 4 doorman no matter how busy they are, unfortunatley for them they only get about 60 customers on a saturday night!!



davetherave said:


> the general rule at the moment is to see how many doorstaff are needed on a venue and quite literally halve it
> 
> this is a typical management way of trying to save money however anyone that has done the doors will agree that this leads to a slippery slope


:laugh: im glad its not just us then!! should be a 5 man team really! problem was we only had 2 guys, myself and another doorman, we were both on front door so nobody was patrolling inside doing toilet checks ect. then we had a 6 man brawl at the bar which we both had to attend to leavingf the front door un-maned!!


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## evad (Mar 17, 2008)

when i started on one of the venues im currently working on we had 6 or 7 lads, its a club upstairs and a bar downstairs so it was

2 lads on each door, one lad inside the bar, two lads inside the club so a total of 7 lads

now we have 4 lads on a friday and 5 lads on a saturday, both doors still have to have two lads on them so on fridays theres no lads inside either venue (so you end up relying on the dj to tell you when its gone off) and on saturday we have one lad patrolling both floors (upstairs often has 4-500 people in)

so the managers have for years been trying to get rid of heavy handed doormen (ie the ones that cant get SIA badges) but by cutting costs they are either ensuring that

a) lads are heavy handed as they are severley under-manned (the most we have inside if it goes off is two as they refuse to let the team leave both doors unmanned)

B) lads just let people take the pi55


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## Testoholic (Jun 13, 2009)

sounds like a nightmare mate, ive been having arguement for months with management, at the end of the day my teams safety comes first, if the door is left unattended then so be it, not having a doorman try and tackle a situation on his own. i understand times are hard and that in order for us to keep our jobs the we must make some sacrifice, or we will end up having more doormen but at £6 an hour instead of £12!!, or no job at all, but some things just take the ****!!


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## evad (Mar 17, 2008)

Testaholic said:


> sounds like a nightmare mate, ive been having arguement for months with management, at the end of the day my teams safety comes first, if the door is left unattended then so be it, not having a doorman try and tackle a situation on his own. i understand times are hard and that in order for us to keep our jobs the we must make some sacrifice, or we will end up having more doormen but at £6 an hour instead of £12!!, or no job at all, but some things just take the ****!!


yeah its crap at the moment, they all think they're being clever but they will only get away with it for so long before lads start to realise that there are more of them then us and will have a go then see how the manager explains their cost cutting when half their doorteam and half the punters are in intensive care :cursing:


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