Security Plans  for your Bar.  
 
The tragic mass shooting in Las Vegas this week have people realing.  It was just an awful, disgusting act, but you don’t need me to tell you that.  We send our best wishes to those affected,directly and indirectly.  I would imagine among other repercussions that this will affect tourism  in Las Vegas for some time, and will hurt our brother and sister Bartenders and other Hospitality workers in the pocketbook.
 
This is not the place to discuss the event itself. One issue that we have never talked about on this show is security.   I am certainly no expert on this subject, but it needs to be discussed.
 
Bars, restaurants, music venues etc are so called “soft targets”.  They are vulnerable, large numbers of people gather there.  We saw this in the Paris attacks, in Orlando now Las Vegas.
 
Ideally every business should write a disaster plan.  There are security consultants that can help with this, or you can write something up yourself, and I’m going to give you a free tool that almost automates the process.
 
One easy and practically free thing every bar should have, but many don’t is a LOG.  Everyday at the end of a shift the manager or bartender or both should write in a log book.  Even if nothing unusual happened, write that!  This is really important for legal reasons, for example - if you have to cut somebody off, or there is a fight or whatever.  There needs to be documentation.  Some places will even include things like the weather or seemingly unrelated details, but they can become important in the future.   The reason to do old school hand written logs in a physical notebook, as opposed to Google Docs or some other computerized solution is that these notes thoreticly can’t be altered after the fact.  The book needs to have pages that are not easily removed, so it needs to have bound pages - a spiral notebook is no good.
Next we can talk about exits. In the Las Vegas attack many many of the injuries were attributed to people getting trampled or hurt while trying to climb walls and other things like that.
I was watching a lot of CNN, in the hours and days after the Las Vegas attack.  One expert pointed out that human nature dictates people will always try to get out the same way they came in.  As I’m sure you know, the Las Vegas shooting occurred at an outdoor venue.  There were 4 gates used for entering, but 3 other large exits on the opposite side.  As in an airplane always locate the exit nearest you, keeping in mind it may be behind you - or maybe the opposite way from where you came in.  I heard one security expert say, “when I enter a place I’m already trying to figure how to get out”.  In fact the advice from a US Government document that I’ll talk more about later, suggests finding the closest 2 exits.
Keeping this in mind, if there were ever an incident where you work and you had to evacuate your guests, you may need to direct them to exits they are not aware of, including possibly through the back of the house.
Here in the U.S. we have the Federal Government agency OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and according to their officail web site “Almost every business is required to have an emergency action plan (EAP).” 
Luckily on their web site you can Create Your Own Emergency Action Plan (EAP).  This is the free tool I mentioned a minute ago, and of course we will have a link on BaretenderJourney.net
This is their description of an EAP:
“An emergency action plan (EAP) is usually a written document required by particular OSHA standards. For smaller organizations, the plan does not need to be written and may be communicated orally if there are 10 or fewer employees.  The purpose of an EAP is to facilitate and organize employer and employee actions during workplace emergencies. The elements of the plan must include, but are not limited to:
Means of reporting fires and other emergencies
Evacuation procedures and emergency escape route assignments
Procedures to