Mississippi nightclubs step up security after shootings www.privateofficer.com

Hattiesburg MS March 14 2011 Local bars and nightclubs don’t seem to be too afraid that they will share the fate of Remington’s Hunt Club.

The club was shut down March 4 after Forrest-Perry County District Attorney Patricia Burchell pushed for a temporary injunction, closing the doors until the club owner has a full hearing in Chancery Court.

Marcus Carr, disc jockey and promoter for the Hunt Club’s North 31st Avenue nightclub neighbor, Pascha, said his establishment doubled its security the night after police locked down the Hunt Club, figuring for a certain amount of new clientele.

But he said the spike in business was negligible.

Carr said, however, that the two recent Hunt Club shootings, leaving four injured, and the response by city officials made security a high priority for the six-week-old club from the beginning.

Following the first Hunt Club shooting in November that injured three Southern Miss football players, Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree tried to shut down the club by suspending its operating license. But Chancery Court Judge Sebe Dale Jr. granted an injunction on the club’s behalf, reopening the doors.

“With all the situations happening within the city, we just wanted to make sure our customers felt safe,” Carr said.

He said the club’s goal from the beginning was to have no more than 50 patrons per security guard, and as the club’s customer base grows, he said the ratio has gotten smaller and smaller.

Pascha added additional security guards to its roster March 3, the day before the Hunt Club was closed, and Carr said the club did so because more and more people show up each weekend.

Pascha’s customer-to-security ratio now sits somewhere between 30 and 35 to 1.

Another Hattiesburg nightclub’s business liaison says one of the reasons the club management isn’t afraid of violence shutting down the night spot is the relaxed atmosphere.

“We’re really a lounge instead of a club,” said Malcolm Clark, an employee of Taste Bar and Lounge.

Clark also said bar management isn’t threatened by the possibility of violence because of the 21-and-older crowd patronizing the lounge on the weekends and the dress code enforced there. Taste also has at least two security guards on duty each night – one at the door and another inside.

But he said the bar hires extra security for special events likely to draw a larger crowd. He said the act booked to play at the Hunt Club the night it closed came to Taste instead, and management had 11 security guards on duty.

“It was a little overkill because it didn’t produce the way the promoters thought it would,” Clark said.

He also explained that Taste’s Hattiesburg Main Street location and the regular police drive-through traffic helps keep down the risk of foul play.

“That’s what really helps us as far as the lingering outside,” Clark said.

Mugshots owner Ron Savell said he’s happy with the security situation at his Fourth Street bar, but did discuss the possibility of making changes following the incidents at the Hunt Club.

But he decided to keep his security the same – only doormen checking identification upon patrons’ entry.

He said his system seems to be working.

“Everybody has their scuffle once in a while, and it’s just how you handle it and get everybody out,” Savell said.

But he said he often thinks about the liabilities involved with owning a bar, and that the high volume of potentially violent Hunt Club customers who don’t have a club to visit anymore has entered his mind as one of these liabilities.

“That guy is going to go somewhere else, and if he’s going to shoot somebody, he’s going to shoot somebody,” Savell said.

Gale Walker, owner of The End Zone on Fourth Street, said she doesn’t worry about a violent crowd showing up at her establishment, which she describes as a “neighborhood bar.”

“I just don’t think we’re that type of place,” she said.

Noting that she has personally ejected rowdy patrons in the past, Walker said her bartenders act as security guards when needed.

She said The End Zone has hired security guards in the past, but she decided to stop using them.

“All they can do is call the cops,” Walker said. “What’s the point?”
Source:HattiesburgAmerican.com