Life Behind Bars (3 page)

This was accomplished in
approximately three minutes.  Once a punter is outside it’s easier to deal
with them; you just shut the door.  And that was what I was about to do
when the dynamic duo appeared.  The two of them stood open-mouthed at what
I thought was my speed and dexterity in dealing with the situation.

“Who the fuck are they?”
yelled
the manager.

“The troublemakers,”
was
my reply.

“Troublemakers?  Why?
 What were they doing?”

“I don’t know!  You damned
well called me.”

“For fuck’s sake!  It’s not
them!  It’s
them
!”

“Who?  
Them
?”

 Having taken up residence
at the vacant pool table were a group of elderly gentlemen.

“
THEM
?  You’re having
a laugh.”

I’d risked life and limb to get
back in record time.  Thrown possibly a dozen young guys out on their
necks for nothing, risking a bloody riot to deal with a group whose collective
age would be about 400 years old — the youngest was definitely over 60!

“
Them
?  You fucking
well called me back here to deal with a SAGA tour?  
THEM
?”

Meanwhile, the victims were
creating mayhem.  (All landladies are secret swearers, and what we utter
under our breath is never said out loud,) but not in this case.  I have
members of staff who have worked for me for over twenty years and have never,
ever heard, or seen me like I was that night. 

I always say when I lose my sense
of humour, run for the hills, and this was it.  Those two fuckin’ eejits
were supposed to be in charge and attend to customers, see to their needs, or
if any problems arose, deal with them.

It seemed that the group of
gentlemen, who were on their annual ‘Chapter Ride Out,’ had not wanted to
venture into the bar.  It was a little too noisy and maybe a bit
rough.  These were the ‘Hells Angels?’

And what about the young guys I’d
thrown out?   Well they were pacified by a couple of free drinks and
the threat that if they caused any trouble, I would be back.

Lock In . . .

Every manager or owner has one
golden rule: check everywhere,
everywhere,
before you lock up for the
night.  There are hundreds of tales of customers being locked in
pubs.  So we all have a check-out system.  Mine took the same route
every night and the gent’s cubicle was the scene of many macabre incidents. 
One in particular rises above all others.

It was the usual Saturday night,
place jumping, and I finally got everyone out.  It never fails to amaze
me, that having worked a ten hour shift and listened to the crap that drunks
think you’ll find phenomenally interesting, they still expect you to be full of
bonhomie at one o’clock in the morning and find it quite impertinent that you
want them to drink up and leave.  Bloody cheek!  The law has nothing
to do with this, it’s personal!

Desperate for my bed, I carried
out my last inspection.  As I progressed through the bar I switched off
lights but could still see clearly under the emergency system, except in the
gents.  To check in there involved a complicated contortion, standing on
one leg, (honestly,) while precariously stretching the other out as far as I
could.

Why?  Well the passage
between the two doors leading into the gents had no emergency light and was
therefore pitch black.  Last thing; check cubicle.  This particular
night when I kicked the cubicle door it bounced back.  It shouldn’t
have.  On closer inspection there was a body. 

Oh! Fuck, a dead one!
Panic!  Fear!  Then a snore, thank God!

Problem was he was absolutely
jammed solid between the toilet and the wall; he was a big boy.   He
had to be if I was able to tell from that angle!  Jokes aside, I had to
get him up and out.  I pushed and pulled and smacked and thumped, to no
avail.  The only thing was to get help. 

Now the majority of my customers
were brilliant but to invite them back into the bar was asking for trouble. 
I’d never get the buggers out, but I had no choice.  Charlie boy was well
and truly stuck.

The fates were on my side. 
When I gingerly opened the door, there, in full snog, was Davie the
plumber.  Honestly, there he was, with about ten of his mates.  I
shouldn’t have been surprised, he’d be in all night and drunk at least twenty
pints.  Wonder if he needed the loo?  How was I going to capture him
without the rest of them piling in thinking it was Christmas?

Just at that moment, their
minibus arrived and to my absolute delight, Davie had succumbed to the charms
of the snogger, waved off his pals and went back in for round two.  Thank
you Lord!  I’ll be a better person from now on.  I immediately
captured Davie, handed him a screwdriver—okay, so a plumber doesn’t usually use
one—and showed him my problem.

The screwdriver was needed after
all.  We had to unscrew the toilet, move it to the side, haul the inert
lump out, and then screw it back down.  Eventually we got the stupid
bugger on his feet and got him mobile, grumbling all the while he had a pint
somewhere.

“Fuck off!”

Now I just had to get rid of the
plumber and the snogger.  On the promise of a free lunch, they made their
way blissfully home and I crawled into bed an hour later than intended.

Gives a new meaning to ‘a lock
in.’

Jump for joy . . .

Forget bar skittles and dominoes,
any good bar has its own signature game which can only be enjoyed after hours
and when absolutely pissed. 

Why?  Because that’s the
rules!

Our particular game evolved one
Sunday night when the staff and a few chosen customers were enjoying an extra
drink after hours.  During one of those extremely intelligent
conversations, which only occur after copious amounts of booze!  And you
never understand why no one has ever thought of it before. 
Genius
Rules!

Squinting with one eye so he
could focus, Jason issued the challenge; who could clear the length of the bar
in the fewest jumps?  Just like the hop, skip and jump in the Olympics.

Now I have to say, very few of us
were built for jumping and I wasn’t sure the bar would stand it.  But they
were all game and very soon everyone was getting into the swing of it. 
Bets were being taken and the best so far was five jumps.

We were making such a racket it
was some time before we realised there was a loud banging on the front
door.  I tried to quieten everyone down and went to answer it.  
‘After hours’ was seriously frowned upon in the town and it was something we
rarely indulged in, but there before me were two members of the local
constabulary.

“We’ve had complaints about
excessive noise coming from this establishment and must speak to the
Licensee.”  

I showed them into the bar, just
as Jason, beyond all control, was in mid-flight on jump number four.

“What’s going on here?”

“It’s a private party, officer.”

“As you can see, no till.”

This was always the landlord’s
‘Get out of Jail’ card.  No till meant you were not selling alcohol. 
It is not against the law to give it away.  As if!  It was the only
time credit was ever allowed in this bar and everyone had to settle up before
leaving.

“Look, we are so sorry, we didn’t
realise we were disturbing anyone and we’ll stop right now.”

“Oh no we won’t!” yelled Jason .
. .

Who was now running full pelt
down the bar, ready to launch himself into his jump.  What happened next
will go down in the annals of time.  Just as he was about to take off, he
stood on a discarded slice of lemon and literally did the splits the whole
length of the bar.  It makes your eyes water just thinking about it. 
Well, if he spoke with a falsetto voice before, he had now shot off the scale;
developed a squint and a lisp!  He walked with a limp too for many months.

Beating a hasty retreat the two
officers left us with a stern warning and the promise of dire retribution if
they had to return.

Thieving buggers . . .

It seems the better you are as an
employer, the more certain staff will abuse or disappoint you.  Pubs are a
blissful haven for the thief, usually because detection is difficult.  I
have had members of staff under surveillance by undercover cops and still they
managed to avoid capture.

One in particular was so blatant
that a number of regulars actually sent me an anonymous letter.  They
weren’t concerned about my losses, just the fact that her husband was not
paying his way and therefore having a free night at their expense.

It appeared that when it was this
chap’s time to buy a round, he ordered as usual, proffered no money, the drinks
were made up and he even received £10 or so in change.  Not a bad haul for
the night, much to the chagrin of the rest of his cronies, who felt that what was
sauce for the goose should be sauce for the rest of the flock.  She of
course was sacked and he was barred.

The annoying result was that I
also lost his five mates as customers for a while.

Another scam which is prevalent
in almost every bar at some time is BYOB, just like they do at parties. 
Only here the barmaid/man will bring a bottle of their own cheap crap, decant
it into a brand name bottle and at the end of the shift, pocket the amount
sold.

This keeps the landlord’s stock
correct and the miscreant can holiday in the Bahamas at our expense. 

Fill your boots . . .

Then we have the real
professionals; usually staff you inherit and who have perfected their perks to
‘perkfection.’  These guys know every scam in the book.   They
are usually so plausible and the thought that they would steal so abhorrent
that catching them is a nightmare.

I know a few who actually set newbies
up as patsies for their crimes.  Believe me, this was when they could make
a killing.

One, who we will call Pat, was so
indiscriminate in her thieving she actually had family members come in with bags
to collect her haul.  If she ran out of coffee at home she would scatter
some on the kitchen floor and tell the duty manager she had dropped the tin and
had to throw it all away.  Seeing the mess on the floor who would doubt
her? 

She would blithely tell us she
was inviting all her family to Sunday dinner, what she didn’t say was that I
would have the pleasure of paying for it!  For an experienced cook, she
burned a helluva lot of roast joints!  This was my excuse for getting rid
of her. 

It was cheaper to close the
kitchen than to maintain her lifestyle.

Fingers in the Till

Naivety is no excuse for
stupidity and most of us have been stupidly trusting, time and time
again.  Whilst I always had a good grip on drinks stocks, it was more
difficult to check on food sales due to wastage etc.  However I found
myself in a position where no matter how knackered I was, and we equate being
knackered with being busy, I always appeared to have the same takings.

“Fool!” I hear you cry, “Check
the tabs!”

Truthfully, I never suspected for
one minute someone was at the fiddle.  Until it hit me smack in the
face.  Thieves can’t allow for sick leave or emergencies.  This
particular thief would drag himself into work commendably, no matter how ill, or
hungover, he was.  I thought he was a Trojan!  Little did I know the
bastard was keeping two families and a girlfriend on the strength of my steak
and ale pie. 

However, there came a time when
even he had to admit defeat and have a few days off.  His poor old mother
had died and, unbelievable though it may seem, he actually wanted to come into
work that morning.

“No, no, no, you must take as
much time off as you need.”

For the first couple of days we
were delighted at how much improved the lunchtime takings were, and had no
suspicions.  However, on the fourth day we were unusually quiet but still
maintained the usual level of takings.   Something was beginning to
smell and it wasn’t the fish.

Time to really investigate what
was going on.  Without alerting the other staff I did a full stocktake and
checked all the till rolls.  It seemed that he would ring up the bill, but
with the till open, so it didn’t properly register.  Customer pays and
thief simply cancels the sale.  This was done on probably 20% of
checks.  Over a week?  Not a bad bonus scheme.  We later
discovered that he was pocketing half the tips also.  Now stealing from me
is bad enough, but stealing from your workmates?

He resumed work on the Monday and
I was ready for him.  We balanced the number of kitchen tabs with the
takings and I am utterly ashamed to admit the difference.  The average he
was pocketing could well afford to keep two families, two girlfriends and
probably even a cat.

The bastard!!  He nearly
joined his mother!

Ladies Choice . . .

Early on in our career, Saturday
afternoons were never the busiest of times for us.  Once the lunchtime
crowd had gone, we were left with a few old faithfuls.

David came up with the idea of
having Go-Go dancers for the dead time.  You’ll be freekin’ dead if you
try that caper I thought.  Well, much to my disapproval two dancers were
hired and word went out.

At 2.45pm there were two old
geezers nursing a half Guinness.  At 2.50pm there were two hundred
heaving, heavy breathing numbskull’s crammed into the bar.  I have never
seen anything like it.  Okay, I thought, minimum £5.00 per drink.  We
literally took megabucks in that two hour period.  The dancers would be a
regular appearance from now on.