A freshman here at Binghamton University could spend at least $100 in a dark alley of New York City to get a fake ID. Fast forward to his first night out at college, he prays that he doesn’t have to suffer the embarrassment of getting rejected in front of the collection of girls from his floor behind him. He silently reviews his ID’s information, running through his new year of birth, address and proper spelling of his name.
This practice is a common thread that links many newcomers to the Downtown bar scene. But the man looking at the IDs has another story. His persona covers a sober, no-tolerance attitude, and ‘ if there’s time ‘ a little room for amusement.
Charles Kelly, a junior majoring in computer engineering, is a bouncer at Scoreboard. He has been working there since the beginning of spring 2010 and said on any given night he turns away about one in 10 people.
Kelly said he sees a lot of blatantly fake IDs, but they also like to keep the bar student-friendly so when a person at the door appears older than a typical student, he will ask to see their student ID.
‘The people who aren’t students are generally the ones who start problems,’ he said.
Reuben Pearlman, a senior majoring in history, has been working at Scoreboard since it opened in April 2009. He is now the head bouncer.
According to Pearlman, people get turned down at the door all the time, but the ones that are directed away are usually non-students.
‘As far as BU students go ‘ we understand that not everyone’s actually 21, but it’s our job to make sure that the fault is on them, they have to prove they’re 21,’ Pearlman said.
However, some people have a harder time proving that than others.
BEING YOURSELF
‘I had a pale, pale white girl give me a black girl’s ID to get in, and then actually argue that it was her,’ Pearlman said.
The ID was then passed up and down the line at the door for everyone else to confirm that the girl in the picture did indeed have black skin, while the girl in front did not.
A similar incident happened last Tuesday ‘ a night that tends to be slower.
According to Pearlman, a girl handed over her ID, which showed her picture on the card. After she was let in she went to wait on the steps for her friend behind her. Before she went inside, she handed her friend a pack of cigarettes. Without smoking a single cigarette, the girl handed Pearlman an ID card.
‘She hands me the ID that I just saw, while the girl in the photo is still standing on the stairs,’ Pearlman said. ‘Even further, the girl in front of me is Hispanic, while the girl in the picture is a white girl. She flipped out when I wouldn’t let her in.’
The bottom line is, bouncers may appear lenient, but they are not stupid.
‘If your ID is from 1974 or if it expired before you graduated high school, you’re not getting in,’ Pearlman said. ‘Sometimes people give me IDs that are friends of mine. I always turn those kids down.’
Kelly said foreign students may be more lucky.
‘A lot of foreign IDs come in the form of passports or IDs from back home,’ Kelly said. These IDs often state the date of birth in a non-American format, leading bouncers to confuse the month and day in the patron’s date of birth.
Adam Tewksbury, a sophomore at Broome Community College majoring in liberal arts, has been working at The Rathskeller Pub for three years.
According to Tewksbury, as Binghamton starts to plunge into freezing cold temperatures, a bouncer can get more irritable.
‘We’re out there for five hours at the time when it’s 10 degrees outside, when people still don’t care it’s really annoying,’ he said. ‘The cold takes the tolerance down.’
While the subzero temperatures also bring students rushing to the basement of the bars, that is where a bouncer’s job takes a different turn. Guys tend to be the rowdy ones, but girls take the lead in numbers of people peeing in the corner or passing out, Tewksbury said.
GETTING PHYSICAL
‘My second week working I was working outside at the back door and I hear glass breaking inside,’ Tewksbury said. ‘There’s a 10-person brawl in the back where the bathrooms are with people lunging at others with broken bottles.’
Tewksbury almost got stabbed by one of those broken bottles, but was intercepted by another bouncer just in time. It shook Tewksbury up, but prepared him for more to come. Last year, there were about five or six fights per night, he said.
But the good news is that students have become less physical in recent years, Tewksbury said.
Another trend frequenting bars that gets people thrown to the curb is sneaking in alcohol.
Pearlman spotted a man one night drinking a bottle of Hennessy. When he questioned the man about it and took the bottle away, the man became upset.
‘He started grabbing at us to get it back because he thought we were taking it to drink for ourselves,’ Pearlman said. ‘He stood at the door for 10 minutes trying to get his bottle back. He was thrown out.’
Yet despite the chaos, the fights and the frozen toes, the bouncers say they have learned to love their jobs. Pearlman cites the stripper poles at Scoreboard as a great addition.
‘The other night there was some Turkish dude on the stripper pole hammered,’ he said. ‘He turns around the stripper pole onto his two male friends before sliding around four little sorority girls.’
According to Pearlman, the poles were a pretty logical conclusion to spruce things up.
‘It definitely provides entertainment while we’re working,’ he said.
So when Friday and Saturday night roll around and the lines can get a little long, remember to be nice to your bouncers. As it turns out, they’re people too.