When it comes to Statesboro, it’s not news that the bar scene took a major dip last year. After a series of events following the death of a Georgia Southern student, the bars could no longer allow 18-year old and up patrons. This change made it impossible for a large population of Georgia Southern students that attended the bars to go out to their favorite spots. While it is understandable that preventing underage drinking is a high priority, giving students a place to gather that can be monitored should be a high priority, too.

So you may wonder: Why does it matter so much if people under 21 can’t go to the bars? You can see my answer to that with my previous article: Why College Towns Need Bars.

I recently got the chance to speak to Taylor Swedenburg, who previously ran a bouncer service. After talking to him, I thought about the possibilities of a Statesboro where instead of banning 18-20 year olds from the bars, bars could allow them, but were required to keep bouncers through a third-party service.

I asked Taylor more about how his bouncer service ran, and got some perspective on how this proposal could be a change that worked in a college town like Statesboro.

Could replacement of current laws with a law that required bars to have third-party bouncers offset chances of incidents?

If the bouncers are doing their jobs correctly, incidents are far less likely to occur which makes it unnecessary for law-enforcement to interfere.

At a lot of bars in Statesboro, the students know the bouncers so some bouncers might be more lenient towards their friends. How do you keep the bouncers unbiased and honest?

Their personal interest keeps them honest. If they know they’ll get fired for letting their friends in, they’re not going to risk it. Personal responsibility is huge. The best thing would be to only hire impartial people. For example, only hiring people who previously worked in law enforcement could be a good answer.

Also, require bouncers to sign an agreement that they realize they could be terminated immediately for messing up. They would be scheduled to a rotation also, so they wouldn't necessarily be at the same bar every night.

What kind of training would be ideal to make sure the bouncers are prepared for the job?

Require the bouncers to take an ID course where they learned how to check for fake identification cards. Taylor personally held a 2-week long course where he taught his bouncers for an hour a day how to handle bar altercations.

Ideally, training could be standardized so that all of the bouncers were getting the same training.

How would payment work?

Bouncers would get paid cash at the end of the night from the bar they’re assigned to that night.

It seems like a pretty cool system, where altercations get nipped in the bud quicker, and underage drinking would be limited while still allowing underage students to have a fun atmosphere. Effective bouncers could prevent underage drinking and maintain a good atmosphere at the establishment.

Obviously a lot of considerations would go into making this a viable option. There would have to be strict regulations and decisions about who regulates the bouncer service. There are still questions like: How many bouncers per number of patrons? Who runs the service and does the hiring? etc.

However, I believe that this could be a solution that worked, where instead of preventing students from going to the places they love because of age, they can go and know they are in a safe environment. If carried out correctly, we could all have a lot more fun safely.