Photo courtesy of Kate VonderPorten Kate Nichols increases the smile factor at Maloney's Tavern, where she tends bar. Nichols shares her stories of customers' crazy attempts to get free alcohol.

Bouncers and waitresses are barraged daily by barflies, club hoppers, groupies and underagers hoping to get a free ride. Underage kids try to pull a different, illegal scam - one we can't advocate.

But regardless of the risk, people hoping to get a free ride approach bouncers equipped only with their good looks, and an even better excuse. The only problem is, if the excuse sounds good to you, the door-weary bouncer has probably heard it before.

"They say things like 'I never bring my ID, I got a DUI and they took away my ID, so this is my temporary ID. Go get so and so, he'll let you know how old I am,'" said Erin Matthew O'Flaherty, head doorman at Club Congress, 318 E. Congress St.

O'Flaherty, who has also been a bouncer for Gentle Ben's, 865 E. University Blvd., said people use excuses to get into bars either without paying or without being 21 all the time. Their excuses usually involve knowing someone who works at the club or bar.

"They usually say, 'I know so and so,' or 'I'm a friend of the bartender,'" O'Flaherty said.

Illustration by Josh Hagler

Think guys are more aggressive than girls about getting in? Not so, said O'Flaherty.

"Barfly girls that come out all the time - they have no shame at all, " he said. "Guys normally don't complain about paying the cover. Guys are a lot more mellow."

O'Flaherty said girls sometimes try one of the oldest methods of getting stuff for free - showing some flesh.

"Girls do all kinds of stuff or at least offer to. They're like, 'What if I show you my tits?' That's great, but you're still going to have to pay the cover. Girls are lame," he added.

Another bouncer at Club Congress, Eric Slocum, expressed regret that girls are being less lame. He lamented that they seldom flash breasts for a free ride anymore.

"I wish. Whatever happened to those days?" Slocum asked.

Slocum is, however, tested with many other excuses people cite so as to avoid paying a cover.

"Everyone comes in three hours early, then sits in there and waits. All the underage kids do that too. I've heard of people drawing stamps on their hands. Or they try to rub it on to someone else's hand, but it's all backward and shitty looking," Slocum said.

He also mentioned that coming to a club or bar regularly doesn't guarantee you VIP status.

"Everybody that's a regular here tries to not pay a cover; they get really pissed if you try to charge them," he said. "They're very pretentious about it.

"They'll say, 'I'm on the guest list,' and there never is a guest list. That's the best one. Everyone always tries to know the bartender."

At Maloney's Bar, 213 N. Fourth Ave., people don't just claim to know the bartender, they claim to be the bartender.

"Someone was so hammered that he jumped over the bar and got his own liquor," Maloney's waitress Kate Nichols said.

That isn't the only way to try to get free drinks. Unfortunately, bar policy makes it nearly impossible to get a free ride.

"When they ask for free drinks, we have to buy the drinks," Nichols said. "They always try to coax."

Excuses and breasts have nothing on the brazenness and athletic ability one man displayed while trying to get into Gentle Ben's, O'Flaherty said.

"One time at Gentle Ben's - Gentle Ben's is multi-level you know - there's this spot where, if someone wanted to, they could possibly grab a hold of the ledge and swing down into the second floor. Some kid managed to one day climb up the back of Gentle Ben's and scale his way down the wall and somehow do a flip underneath and landed on the bar and scooted down and make himself concealed in the crowd. He made a huge scene out of the whole thing and knocked over chairs and tables. The bartender came and got the bouncers and we got him and escorted him out. The whole time he was like, 'You gotta give me that. It was good effort!'" O'Flaherty said.

"I had to give it to him, it was good effort."