Bar-time gas attack

The problem of clearing a nightspot out at bar time is apparently universal. It’s just that the Russians (no surprises here) sometimes take a more direct approach, as I learned last night.

At the Plaza Tavern in Madison, Wisconsin, the bartender cranks the loudspeaker to an earsplitting level and yells until even the drunkest patron flees half-deaf into the night. At the Dacha bar in St. Petersburg, they just drop some tear gas until the bar-goers stumble out, wet-cheeked and coughing.

When my throat initially began constricting from the gas, I thought I was having the first asthma attack of my life. My next thought was that the cops were raiding the place. It wasn’t until my international group of friends (promoting Russian-American relations, one drink at a time) reassembled outside that the concept of a bar gassing its own patrons even entered my head.

“I can’t believe we were just gassed out of a bar,” was the refrain among my fellow Americans and I as we headed home. But according to the desk clerk at our hotel-dorm, such an occurrence is not entirely uncommon here.

The gas tactic strikes me as distinctly Russian, or at least far from the typical American approach. A harsh, but pragmatic solution.

And the situation wasn’t nearly as serious as when a UW professor was drugged by a taxi driver in St. Petersburg last year.

***** UPDATE *****

My new bartender friend agreed that bars here occasionally gas their patrons out. His exact words: «В России, так делают нормально», or, loosely translated, “In Russia, they can do that fine.”