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OH:  Ordering ‘angel shot’ at bar is code word for help

OH:  Ordering ‘angel shot’ at bar is code word for help

The Columbus Dispatch

By Megan Henry

October 6, 2019

Patrons at several central Ohio bars can order an angel shot, a code signaling that they need a bartender’s help to get out of an unsafe situation. Oddfellows Liquor Bar, Bodega, Mikey’s Late Night Slice, Condado Tacos and Woodlands Tavern are some of the bars in Columbus where people can discreetly appeal for help.

A different kind of shot is being ordered in bars across the country — an angel shot.

It’s not a drink, but a code discreetly signaling to the bartender that you need help, and it’s gaining popularity in bars around Columbus including Oddfellows Liquor Bar, Bodega, Mikey’s Late Night Slice, Condado Tacos and Woodlands Tavern.

Here’s how it works: If someone is in trouble, feels unsafe or is on a date that isn’t going well, that individual can go up to the bar and ask the bartender for an angel shot. Each bar handles the request differently but most will escort that person out of the bar or call a taxi, Uber or Lyft. Depending on the situation, the bar staff or manager might also intervene more directly.

“We do it to ensure the safety of every customer that walks in the door so they feel comfortable knowing that no matter what they are taken care of and it’s handled in a very discreet manner,” said Laticia Purmort, a bartender at Woodlands Tavern on the Northwest Side.

Bars around the world have adopted angel shots over the past few years and Condado Tacos first incorporated angel shots in 2015, said Chris Mendoza, Condado Tacos director of culture. There are six Condado Tacos locations in Columbus — Downtown, the Short North, Clintonville, Dublin, Easton Town Center and near Polaris Fashion Place. All offer angel shots, Mendoza said, and people can order them three ways: on the rocks, neat and with lime, depending on the severity of the situation.

If the shot is ordered neat, the bartender will escort you to your car. If ordered on the rocks, the bartender will call you an Uber or Lyft. And if the customer orders an angel shot with lime, the bartender will call the police.

Mendoza said no one has ordered an angel shot at Condado Tacos, but it will keep offering the service.

The Mikey’s Late Night Slice at 268 S. 4th St Downtown recently started offering angel shots this year during the Arnold Sports Festival because of the influx of people and put a sign in the women’s restroom advertising the service.

“It’s just something that I thought needed to be done so people can stay safe and know what to look for,” said Kate Wilson, the bar manager at that Mikey’s Late Night Slice location. “If you are uncomfortable, if someone’s being weird and being creepy, you can’t be afraid to ask for help.”

She said Mikey’s gets a lot of questions about angel shots and they can be especially useful for awkward first dates.

“There’s a lot of creativity that goes behind how to help these people that are uncomfortable,” Wilson said.

Marie Lockhart, 39, of Merion Village, noticed the angel shot sign in the Mikey’s bathroom. Although she has never used it before, she said it is a good idea and the program was round when she was in college at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.

“It’s nice because it’s a way to discreetly leave and not worry about someone following you to your car and make you feel unsafe,” she said.

The idea of angel shots, however, has some flaws, said Ann Brandon, the director of prevention programs at Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence.

“I don’t want to say the whole angel shot concept is not cool,” she said. ”… they are a tiny little thing.”

They don’t replace bystander intervention, Brandon added. And many bars only have signs advertising angel shots in the women’s restroom, potentially excluding men and members of the LGBTQ community.

″(LGBTQ community members) are the most harmed in sexual violence,” she said.

Still, several bartenders said called the concept just another resource to keep people safe.

“There’s been people who’ve just given us hugs and cried because they’re so grateful to know there’s somebody out there that is looking for their well-being,” said Woodlands bartender Purmort.

Oddfellows in the Short North has been offering people angel shots for the past few years, bartender Halle Damico said.

Damico said she appreciated seeing Oddfellows advertise the angel shot when she started going to the bar after turning 21, before she started working there.

“It was one of the first really cool things that I noticed about this place,” she said.

As a bartender, Damico said she has called many Ubers for women and likes how secretive an angel shot can be.

“When you’re loud about it, it can sometimes escalate the situation,” she said. “If you’re physical about it, that could escalate the situation, but having something like (an angel shot) helps keep it discreet and secret without necessarily having to call that person out.”