Audio By Carbonatix
When a young woman trying to retrieve a friend from behind the velvet rope is pushed around, called a “bitch” by a bouncer, then handcuffed and placed in a cop car for no good reason, then it’s time to expose those bullies as the pricks they really are.
Last week at Mynt, which I have often praised for living up to its own hype, I saw a friend of mine manhandled by an asshole and a cop who wanted to show off the size of his nightstick. The trouble started after the doorman waved into the club a group of girls I was with — except one, who was having trouble getting through the crowd. When one of the ladies already inside turned around and tried to help her friend get in, a rico suave mustached bouncer slammed the door in her face.
Shocked, she stepped outside to put her finger in the bouncer’s face and call him out. That got her shoved against the wall and practically flung into a uniformed Miami Beach police officer’s hands. (He was an off-duty cop who Mynt pays $25 an hour, according to Miami Beach Police Department spokesman Bobby Hernandez.) This officer didn’t ask the girl or the bouncer what happened, though; he simply cuffed her and deposited her into his patrol car. He told us that the bouncer is always right, and added that he might let her go if she admitted that she was wrong and apologized to everybody. After 40 minutes of coddling his ego, he finally relented on the condition that we leave the area.
Now, I don’t blame clubs like Mynt for having a difficult door policy. Private businesses have the right to let in or kick out whomever they please. It’s Mynt’s right (and responsibility) to discipline the bouncer. The way the officer handled the incident, though, is everybody’s problem. Hernandez says, “Any officer, on duty or off, is supposed to question both parties in a situation like that. Bouncers aren’t even supposed to be putting their hands on patrons without very good reason. We’ve had to arrest bouncers in the past.”
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Mynt is located at 1921 Collins Ave, Miami Beach. Call 786-276-6132.
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