By SJ Black
Special to the Herald

Customer safety in bars remains unregulated by state and is up to the owners and employees in California.
Last month in the early hours on Sunday, Nov. 27, Daniel Lopez, 33, fired his weapon in a Benicia bar after being refused service after the bar’s 2 a.m. curfew.
Citizens expressed their concern and disbelief that such violence could occur in a safe community like their own on Facebook. More than 300 people reacted to the Benicia Police Department’s (BPD) Facebook video post of the suspect, and over 1600 shared the post to their own Facebook friends.
“Please fb (sic),” wrote Brian Hobson, Benicia business owner and resident, on Facebook, “take a look at this video and see if you recognize this suspect in last night bar shooting at Bottom of the Fifth bar in Benicia. My friend Michell’s family members were injured.”
Benicia Chief of Police Erik Upson expressed his views on Benicia’s community safety, “We have little to no violent crime in Benicia, so incidents such as this are very much the exception and not the norm,” he wrote in an email correspondence.
But where incidents of violence can happen anytime, owners, bar managers and bar employees are responsible for creating the safe environment patrons expect, he said.
“Bottom line is that everything bar managers and owners do in terms of how they run their establishments either create a safe atmosphere or do not,” Upson said.
Brad Albom, owner of Chris’ Club in Vallejo, is no novice to bar security.
“Those nights we expect to be busy, we have anywhere from two to three security people at the door,” Albom said.
He has owned Chris’ Club for 16 years, and he provides security guards as the primary form of customer safety.
Guests are patted down by security and are waved over by metal detector wands before entering. Large bags are not allowed, and Chris’ Club sometimes has female security staff as well, to pat like-gendered patrons before they enter the bar.
“We watch for conversations that sound suspicious,” says Albom, and if a brawl starts up, Albom says his security guards are normally relied upon by bartenders and non-security staff. He tells his staff to call the police if needed, but above all, not to get physically involved.
He also noted was that usually a customer will intervene if a situation arises.
However, the small-town Benicia bar scene is unaccustomed to gun violence.
Bar manager Alex Storelee at Rookie’s in Benicia said Rookie’s employs bouncers for the busy nights and enforces a dress code.
“We don’t allow extremely baggy clothes, like tall tees, you know the big T-shirts that go down to there,” Storelee said, gesturing to her knees. “We’ve had a crowd in here before wearing these types of things, it brought problems, fights, violence, so we just had to enforce a dress code.”
Rookie’s also utilizes security video cameras, which were a helpful factor in catching the shooter at the Bottom of the Fifth bar shooting.
But employees of the bar have no other defense for themselves in the case of a violent incident.
“Personally I have pepper spray,” Storelee said, “but I don’t have anything to provide for them back here,” she said, referring to employees behind the bar.
But the bottom line is staff are left to their own devices if their safety is at risk.
Currently, there are no state, county or city regulations requiring bars or other like establishments to practice drills in case of a violent incident. At the moment, they are only encouraged to have a plan, and to practice it on their own.
At the Bottom of the Fifth shooting, the bar did everything correct, according to Upson.
“In this shooting case the bar did everything right, from what we can see,” he said. “They refused to serve after last call, following their own rules and the law and their staff attempted to ID the suspect.”
After the shots were fired, two men came out of the bar with non-life threatening injuries.
Currently, Lopez is still in custody and the Benicia Police Department charged him with several accounts, including two counts of attempted homicide.
“For the most part, we have some great bars that are well run and managed and provide a very safe environment,” Upson said.
He said he’s constantly impressed by the citizens in Benicia “who stand up and step up to protect this amazing community.”
Benicia’s violent crime rate stands at 0.001 percent, about 1 violent crime per 1,000 people, according to the most recent data from the Federal Bureau of Investigations Uniform Crime Reporting website. Neighborhood Scout shows Benicia stands at 42 percent safer than cities in the U.S.
Both Storelee and Albom agreed that crime happens in all kinds places.
“Be aware of your surroundings,” Albom advised. “Trouble can break out in the middle of a mall, it can break out anywhere.”
“It can happen anywhere,” Storelee said. “A movie theater, a mall—it’s just happening all over the place.“
“I can’t tell you that I can provide safety for you because I personally cannot,” she added.
Storelee had full confidence in the bouncers the bar employs on busy Fridays and Saturdays, but as for the rest, “It’s just a risk that you’re willing to take.”

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