The slap heard around the world

“We need security right away,” said a 20-something woman I had never seen before.

Technically speaking, I was the manager on duty, but I was standing behind the bar at the sweaty little nightclub. It wasn't because I was clueless and wanted to stand in the way like many nightclub managers do, but because I was also working as the bartender. As luck would also have it, I was also part of the “security” team.

I followed her to a man sitting at a table holding his face. There was a big red mark on his left cheek.

“What happened?” I asked. “That guy slapped me,” he said, pointing at the bar.

“Why did he do that?”.

“I don't know.”

I walked over to the guy sitting at the bar sipping a light beer. He had short hair, looked to be in good shape and was dressed business casual. “Clean cut” is the phrase often used and he was every inch of it, which was strange because the nightclub primarily catered to long-haired rocker types in black leather jackets.

Over the three decades I have been in the bar business, one thing I have learned to be true is that the people who look like trouble usually aren't, and the people who don't usually are.

It's never the face-tatted guy who fights, it's the guy in the tie. Don't ask me why.

I really haven't seen a man so visibly assault and batter someone and then be allowed to return to his seat unmolested.

“Why did you slap that guy?” I asked Mr. Light Beer.

“He deserved it.”

Well, that answered that.

Fun fact: You can't go around slapping people, even if you think they deserve it. It's called assault and battery; two crimes in one. Assault is often defined as such if an individual feels threatened and believes they are in imminent danger of personal harm. Battery is the personal harm itself. Or at least that is how it was explained to me by the nightclub's lawyer sometime later.

What was also explained to me was that as a public access business we were duty bound to provide a safe place for the enjoyment of others. And when an incident like that happens, whether witnessed or not, we had to fill out what was called an incident report, detailing the facts. We were also required to make sure, to the best of our abilities, that it didn't happen again or continue to happen. A police report for physical violence or damage was always