Frequently Asked Questions by Community Residents

Over the years we’ve learned from numerous sources, including city council meetings, law enforcement officials, and conversations with citizens in communities throughout the United States, that people frequently feel they have no immediate and reliable way to contact entertainment venues in their communities. Phone numbers listed in phonebooks or websites for these establishments are often disconnected or the venues are usually so busy that they simply do not have sufficient staff to handle all the calls they receive on a typical busy night.

Learn even more about why it's so important to use the Community Connection in your community.

Nightclubs, pubs, taverns, bars, sports arenas, casinos, concert halls are all examples of entertainment venues.

Usually it’s because they don’t have enough staff to handle all the incoming calls. However, a significant number of venues have an unspoken policy of ignoring complaints from the community. This is very unwise because city officials and law enforcement authorities often have little patience for inconsiderate venue operators. If a venue develops a reputation for ignoring the needs of the community, city officials will not hesitate to fine them and shut them down.

The Club Watch Community Connection helps by giving you a direct communications line to the management of a Club Watch Member venue. Learn more about how this free service will make your community safer, save your tax dollars and improve the relationship between the venue operators and the members of your community.

Club Watch Member venues are businesses that have joined the Club Watch Community, which is a global network of nightclubs, bars, pubs, sports arenas and other entertainment venues that have chosen to deploy Club Watch venue management systems in their facilities to stop crime and violence in their venues. Additionally, the Club Watch systems provide many other customer relationship management features that improve the customer experience and help venue operators run their businesses more efficiently. This free Club Watch Community Connection service is made possible by leveraging the advanced communications network technologies built into the Club Watch systems already deployed at Club Watch Member venues throughout the United States (and in select other countries in the coming months). To learn more about the Club Watch technology, please visit the official Club Watch website.

This is usually caused by one of three things: (1) you have misspelled the venue's name; or (2) the venue has chosen not to make their venue profile public on the Community Connection website; or (3) the venue has not joined the Club Watch Community yet, and as a result, does not have the ability to receive real-time messages from your community. If you would like to be able to communicate more easily with a particular venue in your community by sending them real-time messages through the Community Connection website, please invite the venue to join the Club Watch Community.

Here’s a list of issues we frequently hear about (Note: By reading the information on this page, you agree to these terms.):

• Noise: Although most venue operators try to keep noise levels down, they often don’t realize how easily the sound from powerful speakers and large crowds can affect their local neighbors. Venues usually operate well into the early morning hours and the noise can prevent neighbors from sleeping, even if they live a quarter of a mile or more away from the venue.
• Violence: Fights, shootings, riots, stabbings, car jackings, sexual assaults, rape—we’ve seen it all at venues across the country and throughout other parts of the world. Again, most venues don’t intentionally invite these activities, but it is impossible for them to control every single person inside and outside their venues. Club Watch Member venues have a substantial advantage in preventing these types of activities, but the violence can still spread outside the venue without the knowledge of the venue’s security staff. When this happens, local neighbors that don’t know about the Club Watch Community Connection have no choice but to call the police because they either can’t find the number to the venue or the number is disconnected or busy.
• Drunk Driving: This is certainly a problem for many venues, but as a bystander observing somebody driving away from a venue, how do you know for sure if that person is driving while under the influence? This is an important question because, although we all want to keep intoxicated drivers off our streets, it’s also not fair to falsely accuse venues of facilitating drunk driving. The vast majority of patrons driving home from a venue are not legally intoxicated. Please keep this in mind as you use your judgment to decide whether to call the police and/or notify the venue through this service.
• Loitering: This is usually reported in conjunction with noise disturbances. However, loitering by itself is a serious concern for people living near entertainment venues. Large groups of people just “hanging around” can be very intimidating to local neighbors, which results in them feeling like “prisoners in their own home.” They feel like they can’t go outside nor can they allow their children to play outside when large groups of people are loitering in their neighborhoods. (Assuming it’s not too late for the children to be playing outside.)
• Drag Racing & Loud Parking Lots: These types of complaints are very common and the venue operators can implement procedures to reduce automobile noise around their venues. Unfortunately, many people automatically assume there is nothing that can be done because they think noisy cars and parking lots are beyond the control of the venue operators. As a result, they jump straight to the “close the venue down” approach and call the police without giving the venue operators an opportunity to address the issues first. This unfairly hurts venues and it unnecessarily drains police resources, which wastes taxpayer dollars. Additionally, calling the police for such non-violent issues places the rest of the community at risk because those police officers are no longer available to respond to more serious crimes and violence throughout the city.
• Littering: This is a very common complaint in neighborhoods around entertainment venues. Patrons sometimes don't realize they've dropped items as they walk home or enter their vehicles, but often the littering is deliberate. The mentality in these cases seems to be "It's not my yard so it doesn't matter to me." Unfortunately, littering can be a significant nuisance to homeowners and local businesses near entertainment venues when they try to sell their homes or attract business. The unsightly litter repels potential buyers and patrons and they inevitably move on to other neighborhoods. As this type of behavior spreads, eventually entire city blocks become blighted, property values plummet, and businesses go bankrupt or relocate to other cities. This hurts the entire city.
• Trespassing: Trespassing is very unnerving and very dangerous for both the trespasser and the owner of the property being trespassed. This is because the owner of the property often does not know what the intentions of the trespasser are—does the trespasser intend to commit a burglary? Rape? Vandalize? Does the trespasser have a gun? Does the trespasser intend to harm the property owner in some way? All these thoughts are racing through the property owner’s mind. And because it is human nature to assume the worst in fearful situations, property owners who own guns will usually threaten to shoot the trespasser. As emotions rise and fear sets in on both sides, one or all of the people involved may end up dead. The loss of life is tragic by itself, but it also hurts the entire community by bringing property values down in and around the neighborhood where trespassing-related violent activities occur.