SouthFlorida.com | City Link Magazine

At 26, John "L.J." Pellitteri has already been in the bouncer business eight years. Before he became head of security and VIP manager at Voodoo Lounge in Fort Lauderdale, he'd worked at Stereo (which later became Play) in Fort Lauderdale and, before that, Club Boca.

On a recent afternoon, he reminisced about his four years at the club, recalling visits from actor James Caan, hockey legend Wayne Gretzky and basketball wild man Dennis Rodman, working hellacious Halloween parties and, of course, dealing with drunks.

What are your job duties?

I'm the head of security, so I do all the scheduling and staffing for the bouncers. I run the front door, so I do the VIP. We have two other doormen at the front who help me. One does general admission, and one runs the exit and re-entry. I do the VIPs, the guest list, VIP cards, tables for bottle service, reservations ...

How many underage people do you turn away?

We turn away a lot of fake IDs but more people who just try [to get in] without IDs.

Aside from age, why might people be turned away?

We have a dress code. We like to keep an upscale crowd, so nothing too casual, as far as dress code is concerned. The actual dress code is no shorts, sneakers, jerseys or T-shirts.

What is your funniest on-the-job experience?

I found a guy in the bathroom. He was gonna give his friend his clothes to get in, meaning he was inside already and his friend couldn't get in because he wasn't dressed right. I guess the guy didn't have underwear on, so he waited in the stall. The friend who was bringing [the clothes] through the club to the front door either got stopped by security or left altogether. So we had to sneak this guy through the club naked and get him out, 'cause we didn't really know what was going on. We just saw a naked guy in the bathroom and thought, "We've got to get this guy out of here because we don't know if he's on drugs and he's gonna freak out or what," and he wouldn't talk to us. We tried to walk around him. We were trying to get him clothes to get him out of there. He started running from us naked. So we're chasing a naked guy around the club.

What was your craziest night at work?

Halloween, two years ago. It was a Wednesday. I just think the entire state of Florida came to the club. We had some pretty cool giveaways.

What was the worst costume you saw?

It was terrible. It was a kid dressed up in a Superman costume who was riding around in a wheelchair.

What do clubgoers generally fight about?

Girls, always girls. Nine out of 10 times, somebody bumped into somebody's girl, somebody asked somebody's girl out. Sometimes, it's friends who just drank too much and start arguing. But most of the time, it's girls.

What's the worst part of your job?

The drunk people, just ignorant people who aren't out to have a good time.

What are the stupidest things you've seen people do while drunk?

God, I wish I had a list. We actually saw a guy hump a tree about a month ago. Stupidest thing someone ever told me was, "L.J.'s my brother, can I get in?" I said, "Stand out here, I'll go get him." I just let him sit there for a while. Once in a while, people try to jump the ropes, but they're drunk, so they don't make it.