This remind me of a private bartender group I belong to on FB. It’s a general group where anyone can bring up bartender related topics. Recently there has been an increase in posts where a bartender posts about a patron or industry person that has shown systematic and repeated intentions or actual attempt to sexually assault staff or other patrons. They pretty quickly are doxed. People at others bars are quick to ban the person.
After time some people raised the concern that there are no checks and balances on these posts. And some of them could be for malicious purposes. But these same people acknowledge the importance of listening to sexual assault victims. And also agree that if you ban someone for being a sexual predator and say nothing that isn’t right either.
Everyone involved in the conversation seemed to appreciate both that a person is not guilty just based on hearsay but also that we must do everything we can to protect people from sexual assault. Of course some fell more into the innocent until proven guilty and other more onto the protection at any cost side of the spectrum.
Most everyone in this group personally knows each other. So each person can to some extent personally gauge the validity of a particular post. This Patronscan product sounds to take the problems this group was struggling with and turn them into “features”.
I don’t FB anymore so I don’t know if the group ever came to a consensus. I will say, knowing a fair number of industry people, that bars are far more dangerous, regardless of how expensive the drinks are, than most people realize. Every city has predators that work the bars like a full time job. They are looking for you on that one night when life sucks and you say fuck it and drink like nothing matters. I don’t have all the answers but listening to your instincts and sticking with people you can trust while you rage against a shitty day is a start but sadly not always enough. Be safe.
