23. Angel Shots Fired

"Better than nothing" is not the bar

Trigger warning: This post broadly references themes of sexual violence, drugging, gender-based stereotypes, and weaponized alcohol use. Please protect your mental health and use discretion in whether or how to engage with this content.

This may be an uncomfortable discussion for some of you, unrelated to the above trigger warning. I get it, I really do. Hello, I’m a white, able-bodied, cis-het woman in the United States. It’s a weird position to be in sometimes. 

You can educate yourself on intersectionality, but long story short - I understand the struggle of striving to be a good ally and advocate and falling short. Not falling short because I’m not trying, but falling short because some of my identities put me in a more privileged position. Falling short because I have more things to unlearn from our society and my upbringing than I’m even aware of. Falling short because being the default in a white supremacist society means that I’m rarely asked to be uncomfortable.

Sometimes those of us with several positions of privilege expect praise for doing the bare minimum. Sometimes we expect praise for doing a lot more than the bare minimum. Because we are not used to feeling uncomfortable, frustration sets in when our efforts aren’t heralded or we’re told good start, but there’s a lot more work to do. If you feel yourself getting frustrated or defensive while reading this, resolve to sit with the discomfort rather than getting your hackles up or throwing your hands up in the air in exasperated defeat. 

Keep in mind that there is a difference between calling out and calling in. Calling out is bringing public attention to a person or organization’s harmful behavior with the urgent goal of preventing future harm. Calling out also typically occurs after attempts at calling in have been unsuccessful. 

On the other hand, calling in is an invitation to have a conversation about a person or group’s harmful words or behavior. Calling in creates a safe space for tough but necessary conversations to happen.

This month’s newsletter is a calling in, an invitation to consider the actions we’ve taken thus far and what actions we can take going forward to strengthen our commitment to creating a safer industry. Read with the intent of learning and reflecting.

Safety is Not One-Size-Fits-All

Rather than burying the lede, I’ll say it outright: initiatives such as the Angel Shot or Ask for Angela are ineffective safety measures for the craft brewing community. However well-meaning, they are mostly performative and place an undue burden on victims. 

If you’re unfamiliar with the Angel Shot or Ask for Angela, here is a primer. Ask for Angela is a non-profit organization founded in England in 2016 as a way for someone feeling vulnerable or unsafe to ask for coded assistance or support from bar staff. The person asks the bar staff for Angela, a fictitious team member. A properly trained staff will then help the person by discreetly getting them a ride home, asking the perpetrator to leave, calling authorities, etc.

An Angel shot is derived from Ask for Angela and involves giving the bar staff a coded drink order to signal that they are in an unsafe situation and need assistance. There are variations to the Angel shot, such as ordering it neat, on ice, or with lime. 

If this sounds a little complicated, it’s because it is. Let’s dissect some of this to see why these initiatives, which are a great start and certainly effective in some environments, are not really a good fit for the beer industry.

First, part of the reason why I don’t consider these initiatives as effective as they used to be is because of their popularity. There likely weren’t very many of you who learned about these initiatives for the first time reading this newsletter. Which means that perpetrators also know what they are. This makes it harder to ask for assistance. Even using coded language, the person who’s making you feel unsafe may know exactly what you’re doing when you ask for Angela or for an Angel shot. It can escalate an already dangerous situation.

Second, while some states have updated their alcohol laws to allow for things like selling liquor and other alcoholic, non-beer drinks in taprooms, by and large, the bulk of your business likely (hopefully) comes from selling the beer that you brew. And I’m guessing you probably don’t sell shots of beer. So why would someone randomly ask for a shot when all you’re selling is beer?

Third, initiatives like this can work great when you have a busy bar or packed club with lots of noise and thumping music. They don’t work so great when you have a handful of people in your taproom and 2000s hip-hop playing moderately low in the background so as not to be too loud to inhibit conversation. They don’t work so great when you have a 1000-square-foot space (or smaller) with terrible acoustics that allow conversations to travel. 

Fourth, many times the Ask for Angela or Angel shot information is found only in the women's restroom. Admittedly, I have not been in many men’s restrooms so maybe I’m completely off base with this argument, but I’m betting that I’m not. Do only cishet people patronize your brewery? If so, uh, big yikes and I’m genuinely curious how you came upon this newsletter. Sexual violence doesn’t only happen between men and women in romantic partnerships. People feeling unsafe are not always and exclusively women. If you still have gendered restrooms,¹ this information needs to be in both restrooms because anyone can feel unsafe and deserves to know that there is assistance available for them. 

Fifth, and most importantly, initiatives such as these require people in unsafe or vulnerable situations to make themselves even more vulnerable and potentially even more unsafe. Asking for Angela or asking for an Angel shot means the person needing assistance has to trust a few things. They have to trust that the staff has been properly trained and can handle the situation with the utmost seriousness, respect, and urgency. That’s a lot to ask of someone already feeling unsafe. 

How do you know you can trust the bar staff? How do you know you’ll be taken seriously? Will they get you the help you need? Will they doubt that you need help? What if the person making you feel unsafe knows the bar staff? Has the staff been trained in what to do? Or, did the business simply place a sign with the protocol typed out in cursive font in the women’s restroom? These are very real questions one might find themselves asking. 

Seeing the police as protectors of you and your identity is also a privileged position to have.

The protocol that people are told to follow to get assistance can get complicated. Do you need your Angel shot neat or with lime? You’re already in an elevated emotional state, you feel unsafe, and time is of the essence. Will your bartender know what you need if you mess up your “order”? What if they called the police when you thought you were asking for a cab? This is also a good place to mention that the police do not represent safety for many people and communities. Even if a person is in an unsafe situation, that doesn’t mean that the presence of the police makes the situation safer for them. Seeing the police as protectors of you and your identity is a privileged position to have.

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So what can we do here? First, invest in training yourself and/or your staff in bystander intervention. I’ve participated in both the Safe Bars and SAFE Bar Network trainings. Both programs showed me that I have a lot of the intervention tools needed in my toolbox. If you’ve worked behind the bar, I can guarantee you will learn how to reframe your existing people skills to intervene in unsafe situations. You probably already employ some of these skills! What if your employer won’t provide bystander intervention training? There are free trainings out there - Right to Be provides awesome free, online bystander intervention training. 

Second, here are three books I’ve found helpful in learning to be an informed person as well as reinforcing how to intervene safely:

• Read This to Get Smarter: About Race, Class, Gender, Disability, & More by Blair Imani (also follow her exceptional IG account: @blairimani)

• I’ve Got Your Back by Jorge Arteaga & Emily May

• Making Spaces Safer: A Guide to Giving Harassment the Boot Wherever You Work, Play and Gather by Shawna Potter

If you’re going to buy one book, make it Making Spaces Safer. While all three books above will help you be a better ally and intervener, I found Making Spaces Safer to be the one most easily applied to the beer industry. Written by the singer of the punk band War on Women, it covers a lot of practical information that arises in the unique environments of places where alcohol is involved. 

While we’re here on the topic of alcohol being involved, let’s be very clear about one thing. Ingesting alcohol or other intoxicants does not make anyone less of a victim, nor does it make anyone less of a perpetrator. Correlation is not causation. There is no “right” kind of victim.

Alcohol does not make people commit sexual violence or any other type of violent or unwanted behavior. An analogy that exemplifies this well is that alcohol does not cause you to commit sexual assault any more than putting gas in your car causes you to drive to the airport. Gasoline makes it easier to get to the airport, and alcohol makes it easier to do what you want to do.² To think or argue otherwise is rape culture.

Third, figure out a solution that will work for your taproom or business that doesn’t require victims to know complex drink orders or names. What tools do you have that enable customers to communicate with someone to ask for assistance that doesn’t require them to walk up to your bar and audibly ask for help? Obviously, train your staff so that people feel comfortable and safe asking face-to-face for help, but understand that that is the bare minimum option.

An example of a brewery that has done this effectively is Pilot Brewing in Charlotte, North Carolina. Pilot Brewing has two single-stall restrooms. This sign is prominently displayed in both restrooms:

There is a comprehensive SOP behind the bar and on the taproom’s iPads. The SOP contains hypothetical scenarios with step-by-step instructions on how to handle each situation. The texts go to the iPads so only the people behind the bar know that someone needs help. They can then communicate with the person needing assistance in private and remove any need for face-to-face conversation, which - as outlined pretty extensively above - has several issues.

If you’ve got an Ask for Angela or Angel shot protocol in your taproom, ask yourself if it’s the most effective way you can assist people. Also, please don’t conflate the lack of anyone requesting Angela or an Angel shot with your taproom being a place where everyone feels super safe all the time. Again, correlation is not causation. We just outlined a ton of reasons why either initiative may not be the best fit for a taproom. 

You also don’t have to do this on your own. Brainstorm with your team. If you’re part of a state guild or other industry group, start the conversation about what has and hasn’t worked for other places. Be wary of anyone who replies “We use [Ask for Angela/Angel shot] and it works great!” 

To reiterate my message at the beginning of this newsletter, this is a call-in, not a call-out. When I see an Ask for Angela or Angel shot sign in a restroom, it signals to me that the establishment I’m in understands their responsibilities to keep their customers safe. It’s a good start, but it’s not the most effective solution. We can only go up from there.

And finally…

Life is lifing for me right now, everyone. Between being horrified over my excitement about the banalities of home ownership despite the hassle of interacting with contractors (but my power-washed soffits do look really good now!), and one of my giant breed dogs incurring a $7000.00 injury that will require a three-month recovery, I’m not thinking about or doing much else these days. Next month I’ll have some exciting stuff, I promise!

Squirrels: 1 Boris: 0

1. If you have single-stall restrooms and are still designating one for men and one for women, what the fuck? Change them to gender-neutral, single-stall restrooms.

2. This is a good explainer of alcohol not causing sexual violence: http://www.endingtheviolence.us/alcohol-use.html