Night clubs have security problems
2022.11.23 07:00
Night clubs have security problems
Budrigannews.com – After the 2016 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Florida, the owners of the gay bar C’mon Everybody in New York City hired more security guards, and the bartenders at the LGBT landmark Stonewall Inn participated in active-shooter safety drills.
After a gunman opened fire at an LGBT club in Colorado Springs, killing five people and injuring 17 others, those bars and other LGBT establishments are considering how to ensure the safety of their staff and customers once more.Many people worry that physical security measures can only do so much and that the best strategy is to stop a rise in inflammatory anti-LGBT rhetoric.
The Club Q attack, which is being investigated as a hate crime, has increased the fear and rage of a community that is already dealing with a wave of Republican legislation that targets transgender youth and gay Americans, as well as what they believe is a related rise in threats and violence against its members.
Jonathan Hamilt, executive director of Drag Queen Story Hour, a nonprofit organization that organizes drag performers reading books to children in 45 states and has been repeatedly targeted and threatened this year, stated, “It’s really tiring for the gay community that time and time again we have to come up with the solutions for problems that other people make.”
Hamilt stated, “We want to gather and dance, and people want to shoot and kill us.”Why are so many requirements placed on us?”
Police say that someone threw a brick through the window of the gay bar Vers in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of New York City for the fourth time this month, just hours before the attack at Club Q in Colorado Springs.Over the course of the past week, Erik Bottcher, who represents Hell’s Kitchen on the city council, has joined forces with other officials to issue a warning that gay men in the area are being drugged and robbed by one or more individuals.
The Anti-Violence Project, a non-profit organization founded in 1980 in response to a series of attacks on gay men, plans to hold a safety event on Wednesday night at a Hell’s Kitchen gay bar. This is in response to those attacks as well as the shooting in Colorado.Volunteers will discuss ways to increase vigilance in bars, on hookup and dating apps, and with partners at home with staff and customers.
Many bars had to reevaluate their security plans after the Orlando gay nightclub Pulse attack six years ago, in which a man killed 49 people by shooting them.
According to Eric Sosa, co-owner of C’mon Everybody and Good Judy in New York City, “It was definitely an eye-opening moment.”We began employing on-site security seven days a week.”
He recently made the decision to work with what he said is a queer-owned security company because he thought it was better positioned to hire the kind of “firm but caring” bouncers that his customers would like to see at the door.
However, a number of LGBT activists and club owners have stated that no amount of security personnel or technology will shield them from the anti-LGBT rhetoric they blame for fostering such violence.
Several Republican-controlled states have proposed or enacted laws that criminalize doctors who perform certain medical interventions for transgender minors or prohibit teachers from discussing sexual orientation with younger students.
Supporters of the new law restricting teachers in Florida claimed that it was intended to prevent them from discussing subjects that young children were not yet ready to process.Many forms of gender-affirming medical care for minors, according to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, are prohibited in an effort to safeguard children from abuse.
According to Stacy Lentz, a co-owner of Stonewall Inn, the scene of the riots in 1969 that sparked the gay liberation movement, venues are reaching the limits of what physical defenses can accomplish.
“A man who really wants to enter with an AR-15 will not be stopped.They will simply shoot the security guard, right?She stated,To get the far right to tone down their rhetoric, we must really work.Hate should not be used as a political tactic.
Steven Raimo, a drag artist who has been performing as Veronika Electronika in Nashville, Tennessee, for the past two decades, has decided to stop putting on in-person Drag Queen Reading Hour events because he considers them to be too risky due to the threat posed by protesters, some of whom may be armed with guns.A bill has been introduced by a state senator in Tennessee that would make it illegal to perform drag shows in front of children.
Raimo continues to perform for adults, including Tuesday’s drag bingo night at a Nashville gay bar.
