What We Do

As part of the commitment to good service, bars, restaurants, clubs, breweries, and other alcohol serving spaces can build customer satisfaction and loyalty through improved safety. Establishments where staff are treated with respect also have better performing teams and lower turnover. Safe Bars trains staff at bars, restaurants, clubs, and breweries to recognize and respond to sexual harassment and assault among staff and patrons.

We work to:

• Increase staff understanding of the scope and causes of unwanted sexual aggression.
• Increase staff recognition of inappropriate behavior along the continuum of sexual and relationship violence.
• Provide staff with the skills to respond to such behavior safely and appropriately, whether by stepping up or when asked for help.
• Actively promote establishments that adopt safety standards.

The Details:

Our 2.5 hour, interactive training is offered free of charge. Our curriculum focuses on two main areas—recognizing unwanted sexual aggression and targeting; and responding to it. We cover the scope and causes of sexual aggression, and then use an active bystander intervention framework to empower staff to step in when they suspect inappropriate behavior. We present multiple methods of intervention so that staff can tailor their responses to their own comfort levels and identities.

Why bars?

About half of all sexual assaults involve alcohol. Unwanted sexual attention, including verbal harassment and touching, occurs frequently in bars, restaurants, and clubs. We know that alcohol doesn’t cause sexual assault, but it’s used as a weapon to incapacitate targets and as camouflage to excuse aggressor behavior. Bars, restaurants, clubs, and breweries also have some of the highest rates of workplace sexual harassment of any industry in the U.S., harming workers and their workplaces.

Safe Bars empowers bystanders with skills to:

• Identify high-risk behaviors of aggressors.
• Intervene either proactively or responsively.
• Overcome barriers to taking action.

This way, everyone – those targeted and those witnessing it – have skills for stopping harassment, abuse, and assault and creating cultures of safety and respect.

What kind of behaviors do we address?

• If your coworker touches you inappropriately instead of saying “behind”.
• When a customer calls you “sweetie” or “honey”.
• Intoxicated customers harassing other customers.
• If a customer uses the leverage of a tip to make you feel uncomfortable.
• If customers or coworkers tell sexist/racist/homophobic “jokes”.

The spectrum of sexual violence encompasses a range of harmful behaviors. This includes everything from unwanted touching and inappropriate comments to more severe acts like sexual coercion, sexual assault, and rape. Recognizing this spectrum is crucial, as it acknowledges that all forms of sexual violence, regardless of severity, are harmful and unacceptable.

What's in it for you?

Bars, restaurants, clubs, and breweries trained by Safe Bars reap many benefits:

• They demonstrate to their customers their commitment to providing a safe and welcoming environment.
• They demonstrate to their staff (and potential staff) that they value their safety, comfort, and respect in the workplace.
• Their staff have a greater range of strategies to use in addressing unwanted sexual aggression.
• Customers who have positive experiences are more likely to return and to tell their friends.
• Staff are happier and less likely to leave.
• Safe Bars actively promotes bars that have gone through a training. Safe Bars trained bars receive a window decal for display.