Unruly behavior at a bar can usually be attributed to drunk patrons with too much testosterone, but the wild fracas that took place in the early hours of March 18 in Guangzhou supposedly took place between bar staff and “designated drivers”.
The prolonged brawl happened outside the True Colors (Bense) Bar on Yanjiang Road. During the seven hour melee, ten drivers sustained serious injuries, six had broken bones and four suffered head injuries.
While many people equate a “designated driver” as the unfortunate-but-good-hearted friend who decides not to drink so he or she can drive everyone else home, in China it’s a paid service. A bar patron can hire a driver, who often cycles to the bar, to drive them and their car back home after imbibing. These drivers say True Colors is deciding which designated drivers are allowed to do business with its customers, which they claim is unfair.
A spokesperson for the e-Designated Driver company said one of its drivers received a call from a customer at True Colors bar around midnight. When the driver arrived on bicycle and was 20 meters away from the bar entrance, the spokesperson said seven to eight bar staff suddenly appeared and beat him. The driver had his bicycle stolen and bar staff used metal ashtrays as weapons.
The disturbance eventually caught the attention of other designated drivers in the area, who quickly rushed to the scene, naturally making things even more chaotic. Police were finally able to cordon off the area at 2am, but the fighting continued.
Eyewitnesses said they saw designated drivers use bricks to smash the glass wall of the bar:
The scene was a dense mass of people with the continuous sound of glass being smashed and people shouting. It was terrifying. This kept going on until 6 am; it wasn’t until around 7am that traffic eventually returned to normal.
Nobody from the bar accepted an interview request, only saying the incident was caused by drunk customers.
An unspecified number of people have been arrested, and a police investigation is pending.
