Bouncer Diplomacy

Alex Mendoza jumps out of his seat cushion toward Shayne Hamil, 36, a security guard at Sapphire Gentlemen's Club.

"Why are you dissing my homie?" yells Mendoza.

The problem started at 12:49 a.m., when one of Mendoza's friends placed his hands on an exotic dancer's hips. Touching is a no-no, so Hamil politely corrected him.

Hamil weighs 245 pounds and stands 6 foot 5, a foot more than Mendoza. Like most strip-club security guards, he is unarmed and was not required to undergo any special security training -- although he says he is a master of the martial art of aikido.

"You need to leave us alone," Mendoza continues, "or there might be a problem."

At 12:51, Hamil and two other security guards walk Mendoza peacefully out of the club.

"We believe that 99 percent of all fights result from damages to someone's ego," Hamil explained beforehand. "So we try to treat everyone with respect and give them every opportunity to leave peacefully."

It's all in an average Saturday night for security working the valley's 42 gentlemen's clubs. However, since the shooting outside Minxx on Feb. 19 during the NBA All-Star Weekend -- which injured three, including a now-paralyzed security guard -- incidents such as this are fraught with extra anxiety.

"I feel very confident in the steps that we take, but it definitely strikes a chord as far as what can happen to you," Hamil said. "It puts you on higher alert."

"It's very nerve-racking to everybody," agreed Keith Ragano, club manager and security guard for Scores Las Vegas. "And it's not just one isolated incident."

In August 2006, a dispute inside the Spearmint Rhino topless club led to a shooting in the parking lot that left one man dead and another injured. Earlier in the same week, a man was fatally shot in the parking lot at Larry's Villa. (Neither Minxx nor the Spearmint Rhino responded to the Review-Journal's interview requests.)

Ragano and Hamil both said altercations at their clubs rarely escalate to the physical realm.

"But once every five or six months, we will have to use force to restrain somebody and remove them from the club," Ragano said, "and you definitely think about what can happen."

"It does scare me," added Larry's Villa doorman Maurice Wright. "But it's just part of the job. You have to watch how you handle people. You have to treat them with respect. You can't force people to do stuff or be physical with them, because they will shoot you."

The Las Vegas police department does not compile statistics specifically relating to the frequency of violent crimes at gentlemen's clubs. But the Minxx shooting has forced some clubs into step with those in other cities on security issues.

"A lot of clubs across the nation have begun putting in metal detectors," said Angelina Spencer, executive director for the national Association of Club Executives, "not because they've had a problem, but to say: 'We'll police ourselves. We'll put people through metal detectors just to ensure that we're not going to have an issue within this club.' "

Since the NBA All-Star Weekend shooting, the Spearmint Rhino and Larry's Villa deploy wands on a nightly basis -- although Wright says Larry's Villa decided to adopt the policy late last year. Sapphire plans to use wands whenever the patron-to-security ratio exceeds about 30-to-1.

Until the NBA event, valley clubs had resisted metal detection. But Dennis DeGori, owner of Scores and Sin, changed his mind after performing a Google search connecting criminal behavior with the game.

"I saw that there were major disturbances in Atlanta and Houston," he said, "and it's critically important for me to protect my staff."

DeGori rented not only wands but standing, airport-style metal detectors, deploying them for four nights surrounding the event.

"I don't like metal detectors and I don't like wands," DeGori said. "It was the first time I've used them ever in my life. But I wasn't taking any chances."

Six months before the game, DeGori called a meeting with representatives from eight of his competitors to share his concerns. Some clubs adopted the suggested security measures for the weekend, some didn't. Wands were deployed at Scores, Sin, Sapphire and the Spearmint Rhino.

Then again, Minxx used wands as well.

"How does anyone guard against an unfortunate incident like what happened at Minxx?" Spencer asked. "I don't care if you're the owner of a gentleman's club or a retail store."

Sapphire was alone, as far as the R-J is able to ascertain, in deploying a security measure designed to prevent unarmed patrons from retrieving guns from their vehicles. It eliminated self-parking during NBA weekend. Patrons had to use valet parking.

"We feel that someone who's going to perpetrate a crime is not going to want to ask for their keys back before they leave," Hamil said.

Police spokesman Martin Wright declined to rate the effectiveness of the measures.

"But any help businesses can provide -- for example, maintaining their own security -- we think is good," he said, adding that metal detectors are beneficial "because you're getting the heads-up on people going into your club with weapons, so it's less likely you're likely to have crimes or incidents take place."

Nevertheless, DeGori said the metal-detector rental agency is not on his speed-dial.

"I don't anticipate it happening again," he said. "I don't have that concern."

Later in the evening at Sapphire, Mendoza reappears in his seat.

Hamil explains that the patron apologized and was judged calm enough to return. "Everything's fine," he says.

At least this time.