In Anchorage, a job as a nightclub bouncer comes with plenty of potential for mayhem but little formal training.
In the past, that combination has led to tragedy and trouble for bars and clubs, which have in recent years been held liable in court for the actions of nightclub security staff that injured or even killed patrons.
These days, a handful of Anchorage establishments such as Chilkoot Charlie's and the Great Alaskan Bush Company are sending their bouncers to unusual in-the-classroom training in hopes of staving off ruckus -- and defending against potential lawsuits.
Wayne Manning, 6-foot-4 and 320 pounds, with a long gray ponytail and trained in "combat jiujitsu," has been a "doorman" at the Great Alaskan Bush Company for more than a quarter century.
On Wednesday, he joined about a dozen other bouncers from Koot's, Tap Root and the Bush Company in the Spenard headquarters of CHARR, the Alaska Cabaret, Hotel, Restaurant and Retailers association.
At the end of a two-day class, Manning and the others would earn a certification from Nightclub Security Consultants, a San Diego-based company that touts itself as the national standard for nightclub security training.
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Welcome to "bouncer training," where the classroom is stacked with 6-foot-5, 350-pound guys with necks like tree trunks and the teacher speaks in colorful expletives while explaining terms like "civil liability."
The training is promoted as "totally job-specific to the difficult and dangerous job of a 'bouncer.' "
The first Anchorage bouncer training was held a decade ago, in the immediate aftermath of an incident in which a 24-year-old college student and Alaska Airlines employee named Gerald Haynes died while bouncers at Chilkoot Charlie's were restraining him, said the company's founder and trainer Robert Smith, a former police officer.
No one was charged with a crime, and Haynes' family settled out of court with the bar.
Afterward, there were calls to professionalize the industry.
Smith started visiting Anchorage to train bouncers, and there was even talk of developing mandatory training standards for nightclub security workers in Anchorage.
That didn't happen, and interest in such training seems tepid, said Dale Fox, president and CEO of CHARR: Only a few establishments sent people to last week's class. Most bars in Anchorage don't have bouncers.
While Alaska law requires private security guards to be licensed, bar bouncers are not included.
Nightclub security staff must have an alcohol server card, according Fox.
But there's no mandatory training specific to the job bouncers do -- which can involve getting physical with bar patrons in ways that have the potential to generate injuries, headlines and lawsuits.
But for the bars that do, being able to prove that you offered training to your bouncers can lower liability exposure, he said.
At the training, the bouncers learned about the importance of clearing empty pint glasses from tables to prevent them from becoming weapons. They were shown photographs of the bloodied face of a guy in Florida who was rammed into an exit door by bartenders and ended up sustaining grotesque injuries. And they learned a lot about terms like "intentional acts" that surface in lawsuits.
These are not concepts that many bar and nightclub managers have time to directly talk to their staff about, said Bob Maxwell, a security manager for Koot's.
Most of the training attendees were men, but Koot's sent two female security workers. Nicole Cromer, part of the door staff at the sprawling Spenard nightclub, stands about 5-foot-2. She's often called on to diffuse a tense situation by walking a drunken guy out. Sometimes patrons hit on her. But they rarely try to actually hit her.
"Some situations need a feminine dialogue," Smith told the group.
Manning, the longtime Alaskan Bush Company bouncer, said he'd attended the training several times. He's seen the standards change for bouncers over the decades. People are more "cop-happy and sue-happy" these days, he said.
"Some of the stuff that was done in the 1990s would never happen today," he said. "If I can get someone out the door without putting hands on them, I've done my job."