Customers keep damaging our pool tables

Eddzz!!

Eddzz!!

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Eddy
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So I work in a student bar in the evenings during the week and recently we've been having issues with customers damaging our pool tables. Now the pool tables do get used quite a bit, but I can only imagine that it is the same repeat offenders that are doing the damage (we get some real clowns in from time to time). This week two of our cues were snapped in half and the glass side of the pool table (the bit that shows you how many billiard balls are inside the machine) had been smashed, leading to one of our shift managers badly cutting his hand. Of course every time we get the tables reclothed and fixed up it only takes a matter of days before they are back looking like their ratty-old selves. OH and of course, customers love stealing the billiard balls - what's wrong with people?! /rant

Now with the way our bar is laid out it would be fairly difficult to keep an eye on them all the time... Other than just prohibiting use of the tables for a few weeks, hoping that people get the message, I've not idea what we can do... Any ideas?!
 
Camera!
 
Aye, we do have CCTV cameras but it doesn't seem to deter people! I imagine they think "it's just a student bar run by students - who gives a sh*t!"
 
Take them away, or stop people using them, hopefully they will then get the idea. Unfortunately like most things, it is the minority ruining it for others. Or take a returnable deposit for the cue(s), triangle and chalk.
 
Cash deposit seems like something worth trying. At the moment we ask for their student ID card, but that doesn't seem to deter them either (they just leave them behind and collect them another day!)
 
The more anti-vandal measures you put into place, the more the herberts will work to defeat them. They will treat them as an invitation to wreck.

Sorry to say, but snooker/pool tables are for adults. Take them away - and let people know why they have been removed.
 
£5 deposit, most bars do it here (South east), it just seems to weed out the Knob 'eds
 
I'm of the take it away, and make it public knowledge why they've been taken away...or do regular checks on them...if they are covered by CCTV this will mean you don't have a lot of reviewing to do to find the morons, then post pictures of those causing damage to your Facebook, ban them and bill them for damage
 
Another for the "take it away" approach.

Perhaps 2-3 weeks and then re-introduce them with a £5-£10 deposit.......... At a minimum, that gets them 2 cues and a cue ball. If it's practical remove the all the balls from the table and place in a tray where it's obvious if any are missing. When they finish playing they have to give everything back or lose their deposit (although I guess a member of staff would have to retrieve the balls from the table?)
 
Yes, I'd do away with the pools table. It may fare better in a pub or a working men's club where the "regulars" has a better sense of respect and responsibility but when you have a student hall full of young bored or/and impressionable teenagers, I think you are fighting a losing battle.

Yes, believe it or not, I was once a student attending a college course years ago and this thread did remind me of a very sorry looking pools table sat in the corner of a hall where it had long since been stripped of it's baize and the table itself was used as temporary seating or a resting spot for rucksacks.
 
You said they cant really be kept an eye on properly by staff where they are....can the layout be changed so you can, even if that means reducing the number of tables? As others have said, deposit or simply get rid for a while at least, the repairs expenses are simply not worth it.
 
Deposit, yes. And you could try a sign explaining that because of a few morons, the table will go if there is further damage. Mind, it sounds as if pool is a net revenue loser anyway.
 
The CCTV is only a deterrent if it's reviewed and the perpetrators caught. If you do find someone damaging a table what powers do you have? can you make them pay or ban them or..?
 
Leave the pool tables where they are and stop serving alcohol. That'll teach the little feckers.
 
Difficult. I was a student at uni. My worse offence was to put plastic drinking cups into the pockets so we didn't have to pay for games. Other than that, we treated the pool table with respect.

I'd remove it. Students allow people who would normally be adults an excuse to act as children.
 
Prosecute the perpetrators - or at least sue them for the expenses incurred by their selfish actions. Should only take a couple of suits to show that you mean business. At least catch them and bar them - maybe a rogues' gallery with explanations of the reasons for the ban?

A pub I used to play for had a student problem including one clown who flopped something pink into a pocket. A slam of the cue ball into the same pocket (it should be noted that there was plenty of room) cured the little scrote of that!
 
Nod said:
Prosecute the perpetrators - or at least sue them for the expenses incurred by their selfish actions. Should only take a couple of suits to show that you mean business. At least catch them and bar them - maybe a rogues' gallery with explanations of the reasons for the ban?

A pub I used to play for had a student problem including one clown who flopped something pink into a pocket. A slam of the cue ball into the same pocket (it should be noted that there was plenty of room) cured the little scrote of that!
Click to expand...

:D Cough cough might have already suggested pictures of the offenders ;)
 
Have someone they don't know sit in that room to observe. Then the perpetrators are billed for it. If they don't pay up you make sure the uni chucks them off their course.

Or just take the tables away and make sure everyone knows why. The ones doing it will probably get a good kicking from the rest that manage to be careful.
 
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