Downtown Thibodaux is locally known as a place where Nicholls students go to let loose after a rough week of classes. It is a place where students and locals alike can have a drink and socialize.Keeping civility in an establishment full of inebriated patrons looking to let off steam can seem like an arduous task, but that is the weekly responsibility of the security staffs of downtown Thibodaux.

“People think security is here just to break up fights,” Justin Munson, manager of The Library, said. “But it’s more than that. They are here to keep the customers safe in every way, shape and form.”

Other businesses in the downtown area agree with Munson that the real-life job of bar security is nothing like what is represented in the movies.

“We don’t hire bouncers here,” Grady Verret, co-owner of Last Call, said. “That’s just a really bad term to use. People think of a bouncer as a big, burly guy throwing people around the bar, but that’s not the reality of the situation.”

The role of bar security is changing. These days, an aspiring bouncer has a better chance of getting hired on his brains than his brawn, according to Verret.

“I don’t hire people based on their ability to manhandle people,” Verret said. “We hire people based on their social skills and ability to be verbally assertive.”

Munson said, “You definitely want a bouncer to be physically able to break up a fight if that is what it comes down to, but you want somebody who can think more logically than to just physically end the situation.”

The actions of bouncers came under national attention earlier this month after a 25 year-old Georgia college student suffocated during a New Year’s Eve altercation with three bouncers at Razzoo Club and Patio on Bourbon Street.

“I don’t think that the actions that those guys took speak for the industry as a whole,” Verret said. “I think you just have three individuals who made bad decisions.”

Munson trains his staff to consider the well-being of the customers first.

“I tell my employees that our customers are our number one priority, and (to) do the best they can to diffuse any situation with the least possible aggression.”

Patrons agree that a bouncer’s role is to calm down a situation, not to start them.

“When a bouncer is loud and up in someone’s face, that only gets the adrenaline pumping and things could happen,” B.J. Antill, marketing junior from Houma, said.

The shift from the image of a big, bald and beefy bouncer to the level headed, smooth talking bar security staff member makes sense because it is better for business, Verret said.

“It is not in my best interest to have my staff get into any kind of altercation,” Verret said. “If you have a big, physical person that does deter problems to an extent, but it also causes problems because these guys want to get in the mix.”

Bouncers in the downtown area are not required to attend any classes. Before being hired, most owners do require a short orientation period and Techniques of Alcohol Management (TAM) certification.

TAM is nationally recognized as the leading program for responsible server training, and teaches professional and ethical conduct when serving alcohol, techniques for reducing alcohol-related accidents, and incidents and techniques for preventing the illegal sale of alcoholic beverages to minors. TAM is required in some states, but not Louisiana.

No matter how well a bar is staffed, when alcohol mixes with tempers, squabbles are inevitable.

“I feel for a venue of our size and the different crowds that come, we do pretty well,” Verret said. “We have gone months with out any type of altercations, whatsoever, and then we will have two or three altercations in one night. It just varies.”

Munson said, “Obviously, the more people, the more tension and as people have more and more to drink the chances rise that something could happen.