Exits

Never walk into any place if you don't know a couple of ways out. Always sit where you can the door in a bar or restaurant. What rules am I forgetting?

Engage brain, before speaking, gammanu95.

I've never had the problem you've described where the crowd got out of hand, no. Nor have I been present for a club raid, no. But I still do make notes of any exits and if there are any fire extinguishers near by.

I do keep track of club staff and their movements, particularly the bouncers, managers, and any floaters.

I ran into some trouble with the bouncer once, so I explained this to a dancer, and she trained me how to manage line of sight and to watch/predict the movement of bouncers. The goal is to know where the are at any given point and their line of sight. The movements are predictable based on time of night, whether it's the beginning, end of a song, beginning/end of a stage set, size of the crowd, how many or how few people in VIP, which dancers are most friendly with the bouncers, etc.

Waitresses on the other hand are too chaotic to predict and often move quickly.

It make me feel like a club secret agent. :)

I think it's something I'm aware of, but it's not the first thing I look for. There's a club I was in the other night after hours and it was clearly a dive with a rough crowd. There I looked for one because the main entrance had a choke point and the layout of the main room was a problem. I'm typically focused on what I'm doing, but aware of the room.

Drunks I don't really worry about. If they're really drunk there's only so much damage they'll do. I already mentioned in some other thread about the guy who was angling to get killed by some thug-types before I left a strip club (and succeeded). That club already had a body count higher than one, so it wasn't a mystery what might happen if the guy didn't stop with the big shot routine.

Clubs want to make money. Some of them have a high tolerance for problems because they have't been bit that badly by being lax. But when they do get bitten it's worse than if they ran a tighter ship. Any spot has the potential for trouble. Clubs just tend to have more of the key ingredients in place than other venues.

I practice the same rule with bouncers as I do with following trailers on the road - if you can't see their eyes, their eyes cannot see you. But those damned cameras...

I get too distracted when I see titties. So yeah, if someone comes in spraying gun fire Shailynn is gonna get mowed down and not one of the savvy guys who ducked out the back door.

Great - I'm sure my wife will love telling everyone "he got killed in a strip club, I didn't even know he went to those."

Lmao!!!!!

As long as I have my Glock in its holster on my side, I don't worry too much about trouble in the club.

I'm no Jason Bourne, but yes I do that in clubs and other places as well. I'm not paranoid, but I like to be situationally aware in any crowded venue.

I remember a club in Hialeah, FL. I had never been there, I walk in, and went through the metal detection gear, and thought, this must be a fun club if they check you for metallic weapons. I noted the other exits, in case of any trouble. Trouble happens spontaneously, drunken patrons, macho dudes, etc., etc. I don't go to the inner city clubs here in Detwaaa, for those reasons. A club I used to frequent, Bev's on Detroit's east side was owned by bikers. It was a peaceful place, I'm sure the biker bouncers could control things.

Whenever I see Juice, I start checking all the exits in case he ate too many chackin fingers or had a bean burrito and there wasn't a McD's around. :)

or you can carry a wrecking ball into the club and make your own exit

Just to be clear I am paranoid enough to look for the exits closest to my plane seat, my hotel room and in restaurants.

I have never once checked out the exits, planned an escape, or anything like that in a club, and I've never needed to. I'm usually high which can make me a little paranoid, but not so paranoid that I'm planning my exit when I arrive. This seems totally unnecessary to me unless you are going to particularly bad dive clubs.

It's def a good idea to be aware of one's surroundings particularly where all the possible exits are - over the years there have been stories of packed nightclubs where a fire has broken out and it was a catastrophe.

I'm usually preoccupied about the visit and the hos and usually don't have those things such as exit-strategy in mind largely b/c I SC so much it has become second-nature and have sorta become complaisant.

I visit black dives for the most-part where I'm almost always the only white person - I'd def aware of this fact even if at a subconcious level and never fully let my guard down - i.e. whether conciously or subconciously I never let my guard down fully at a dive as I tend to do at an upscale club.

I don't visit clubs at night as much anymore particularly weekend nights - so I don't run into packed clubs as much these days (except when I visit Follies).

But I recall in the mid-2000s I was down-here in Miami on Christmas vacation (was living in Dallas at the time) - I would always SC when I was down-here on vacation so I decided to visit a local black dive (Climaxxx, former Lexx) on Christmas night - this club has a dayshfit and nightshift but the club was understandably closed for dayshfit on Christmas day and opened around 8 pm - I arrived around 10 pm and the club was about 25% full - but past midnight it became a madhouse and beyond SRO where one could not even find a place to stand - people kept filing-in from the entrance and would have to stand there b/c they couldn't walk any place else - I def became concerned mainly if a fire or something broke out we'd be trapped b/c of all the bodies in-there - it took me about 15-minutes to wade thru the crowd towards the exit of the club including the mob of people outside trying to get-in that were jamming the entrance where I couldn't even make it out of the entrance to my car - I had to squeeze my way thru the crowd and had some hood niggas pushing me in the back and someone even punching me in the kidneys and someone else trying to reach into my pocket as I was trying to make it thru the crowd outside (this club was def more ghetto back in the mid-2000s) - eventually I was able to make it to my car and get the hell out of there - I went for a drive in South Beach to get some fresh air and then drove back by the club about 90 minutes later on my way home and there were like 10 police-cars with their lights on outside the club - IDK what went down.

Yes, always... I have had the unfortunate and unbelievably bad luck of being in 3 separate hotel fires. Two could have resulted in loss of life if I hadn't followed the rules of staying low to the ground and knowing where the fire exits were. Scary thing about clubs is the dynamic crowd movement. Most people are killed or injured by suffocation/crushing when trapped. Sobering thoughts....

Mrs sea always makes fun of me but I always sit where I can see the door no matter where we go and I'm always aware of the exits. I also keep an eye out for everyone around us. I just like being prepared for that one time something may go down. When we're at the SC I know where the exits are and I do scan the room every few minutes but not as much as everywhere else. Too many naked people to watch. The one thing I do obsessively at the SC's is that I am always aware of everyone within arms reach of us and I'm constantly aware of my pockets.

I'm usually more wary of the dancers since they are the ones I interact with

I always sit with my back to the wall, so if some hired gun comes in, I can blast him first. (The dancer dressing room is the only other exit other than the front door, so that's where I'm going in an emergency.)

IDK if the DR at our fave SC has an exit but I know exactly where the other 3 emergency exits are.

Mr. Sea: always going for the Power Seat. Nice. ;)

Always know the exits. Never had any issues.

Bubba, if we ever travel to the same city for a meetup, please tell me where you're staying so I can stay somewhere else.

It's always good to be aware of where the exits are, strip club or not. The trouble with some clubs I've been to is that they really only have one exit I ever seem aware of, and it's all the way across the club. There's one where the only one I know about is up a flight of stairs, which makes me wonder where in the world the other exit is, because they wouldn't make the beer guy go down the flight of stairs when he delivers, would they?

I agree on knowing escape routes and being aware of your surroundings and usually take note when entering any establishment. However, in all my years, the hundreds (thousands?) of concerts, dive bars, restaurants and strip clubs I have been in, the only time it was ever an issue is when we had to evacuate a casino because someone yelled "shooter". Turns out there was no shooter and it was a complete false alarm....

Every damned time. Some of the clubs here are kinda rough, and I know where the exits are in all the ones I go to.

One of the first things I check for in a new club, too.

I tend to go to safe, (somewhat) upscale clubs. So I don't normally worry too much. But I've told the story about the New Year's Eve brawl I witnessed at a dive club. I didn't leave, but I "inched" toward the exit, making sure I had a clear fast departure lane if the fighting got too close

Js69...will do but, I might counter that statistics say that where I stay would have to be least likely to have a fire. :)