We Asked America's Top Club Security Expert How Venues Can Prepare for Active Shooter Situations

The tragedy at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando last month unnerved the whole nation, but it left nightclub goers—and especially those from the queer community, who have long looked to clubs like Pulse as a refuge—especially terrified. These spaces serve the unique purpose of providing escape and protection from an often hostile outside world; they're last place you'd expect to have to confront violence, which means that venue owners, security personnel, and fans alike are often unprepared for it when it happens. Fortunately, there are some who are working to keep you safe, and to stop tragedies like this from ever happening again.

Robert C. Smith—a former police officer from San Diego and the founder of the Nightclub Security Consultants—is one of them. In 1998, while still on the police force, he arrested a bouncer for assaulting a rowdy bar-goer. Robert was shocked at how easily the altercation could have been prevented with a bit of simple training, and started his company the same year to "assist operators to create the environment to allow for good times and safety. " For the past 18 years, Robert has trained nightclubs and security personnel all across the country, and has even helped write legislation in California requiring bouncers to complete 16 hours of on-the-job training—in fields like Weapons of Mass Destruction and Terrorism Awareness—before they're licensed to operate permanently in the job. These days, he regularly lectures to the public on matters ranging from Fake IDs to how to deal with active shooters.

The Nightclub Security Consultants offer classes and training courses online and in the state of California, but Robert was willing to give us some free advice in the name of making clubs safer worldwide, barring tighter restrictions on gun ownership in countries like the U.S. We spoke about the importance of preparedness and a couple of other tips to keep venues safe.

THUMP: You got your start because you had to arrest a bouncer on an assault charge—can you tell me more about that?
Robert C. Smith: It was in San Diego, 98. I was a police officer. [A] typical drunk at the door wouldn't leave or walk away, and said the wrong thing, and the bouncer punched him a couple times. The kid was lying on the ground, the bouncer called the cops to have him picked up, and I ended up taking the bouncer to jail. This might have been prevented had the bouncer received more training.

Since 1998, have you seen an increase in nightlife violence?
Yeah—not just in San Diego. As a 20-year cop and a 7-year detective, you have to look at crime trends and the reasons crimes occurred. I still do that as a consultant and trainer, and nightclub violence has increased—since '98—tenfold.

Is there enough attention given to security in the Nightclub business?
No. There's a national association called the Nightclub and Bar Media Group that has been around for 32 years. They have a convention in Vegas every March. They provide entertainment, and a treasure trove of educational sessions for any bar anywhere. I was their first speaker regarding security in '98, [and] they'd been open for 17 years. They would ask me to pen an article about security for their magazine, and out of a 72-page magazine, they'd always put the security articles in the back.

Yesterday, I was on the phone with an advisory board about educational sessions we wanted to present, and at the end of the 90-minute conversation I had to say, "Folks, we've been talking about craft beer, whiskey tasting, and big-ass fans for an hour and a half."

[Security] is what I've been [talking about] for 18 years, and that's what I'll continue to do. Right now security and safety within the nightclub industry is a fourth, down-the-road stepchild of the industry. Security isn't as flashy as a mixologist in a bikini shaking booze.

Would you say the safety precautions that make the biggest difference tend to be simple?
Oh my god, yes. Negligible. San Diego hosted the Super Bowl in 2003, and my bar-owner friend bought a case of police-grade pepper spray for her bouncers to control the crowd if things escalated [at her bar]. I was dumbfounded. I met with her and all of her command staff, and I told her that she could have hired five extra guards for $500 when she spent $700 on pepper spray, which runs the risk of people panicking and thinking they're being gassed and somebody getting trampled. She spent the extra money and got more security.

In February [of the same year], an off duty police officer at Club Epitome in Chicago dispensed pepper spray and 21 people died in the panic. You save a lot of money in damages for the small expense of hiring extra guards. Making your club safer is a simple formula.

Do you have any thoughts about the security during the shooting at Pulse in Orlando?
None of the details about security have been released yet. But I have some thoughts. For example, one of the reporters or CNN asked one of the terror experts in Orlando why he thought the gunman waited until 2 am. The expert said that the time had nothing to do with it. He was so wrong—the time had everything to do with it. They were about to close. Everyone was finishing up, they want to go home, they're all doing side work and cutting corners to close the bar. The best time for a shooter is when the club is shutting down, everyone is distracted.

What should clubs do to protect people at the end of the night?
In San Diego, you need to have at least two guards monitoring the outside sidewalk at least thirty minutes before and after closing. The reason they do that is to keep the crowd calmed down, so you can get them moving on. You've seen a bar where they push everyone out at once, and there are 200 people suddenly outside. Start doing your push a little earlier, start doing your closing and monitoring your sidewalk. I know some of the bars in New York have guards that will stand out from three to five, politely moving people out of their space and quieting them down. We don't know the numbers in Orlando, or if their jobs had training to do that.

How do you teach clubs to prepare for shootings specifically?
The first thing I teach them is what an active shooter is. The most rare type of active shooter is the type we saw in Orlando: the lone wolf gunman who's coming in to kill as many as he can. There are two other types of active shooter that we ignore. Number one, the most common: someone gets in with a gun because the bar doesn't check bags and fires off after getting in an argument. The second type is someone who gets kicked out of the club, and comes back to the club with a gun or does a drive-by. I want them to be prepared for those two first because they are the most common.

After that, we teach them what they can do whether [the shooter] is alone or with several other people. Normally, a shooter is with a group of four or five, and is wearing clothing that could conceal a gun or a weapon. In terms of the lone wolf type, you rarely see a male from the age of 25-30 coming to your club alone. When you get a single male coming to your bar, you should talk to them more. Don't be suspicious. Just talk to him more so he knows you're on your game and paying attention to him. There were potential lone wolf shooters that were caught by the FBI in Chicago, DC, and New York because of [the potential shooter's] suspicious questions about their target location. If someone is taking pictures of the venue, take a picture of him. If he's showing signs that he doesn't want to be on camera, call the police.

Then we get into specific situations. When I do my training in clubs, I walk the bouncers through the club and show them opportunities for improvised weapons in the case of an active shooter. Examples of improvised weapons include fire extinguishers, bar stools, pool cues, a magnum of champagne, or a bottle of Grey Goose. If you're ducked behind a bar and a shooter runs out and you hit him over the head with a bottle, that's a good move. We're the only organization I'm aware of that teaches these procedures specifically for bars and clubs.

Has your business spiked since Orlando? Have a lot of people contacted you about interviews?
Interviews, yes—we were contacted for around 30 interviews in the first two weeks since Orlando. No spike in business. We've seen more interest in what we do, but I'm not expecting a spike for a month to a month and a half, when people realize the police and the Feds aren't the answer. That's usually what happens with these kind of tragedies: people think that the police are going to come up with a solution for them, and they don't. It just happened in Minneapolis: the police were going to hold a meeting about nightclub security in mid-June, and tabled it until July 30th. Private industry has to step up to come up with solutions to make their people safer.

What should all nightclubs––in the wake of the Orlando tragedy––do in the short term to immediately improve their security?
Number one, talk to your staff. Don't pretend that [threats] don't exist. Don't fool yourself into thinking it couldn't happen to you, no matter where you are.