Safety in Bowling Centres

S

Showboat

Why is is that so many bowling centres do not give a bat crap about the way house bowlers run up and down lanes and behave so badly.
They almost turn a blind eye to these people turning up wrecked, take there money and let them do as they like.
They let them run down lanes sliding all over the place, take food and drink in the seating parts as well as on the lanes themselves, surely if this sort of thing keeps happening the centres will get sued, and surprise surprise, we'll all be paying higher rates because of idiots who will probably have an accident with thier own stupidity :evil:
Why arent centres showing more attention to this as youd think it was in thier best interests to make things safer :?:

id be interested to hear some other peoples thoughts on this :arrow:
 
Well it's not just the people that are running a muck that might get hurt, it's also other bowlers like serious league bowlers. It annoys me when I go to bowl and find food sprawled all over the players area on the floor and on the approaches. Often there is coke and water etc as well so you have to be careful where u step. It is a bowling alley not a foodstore. PROVIDE TABLES BEHIND the lanes. I dont mean one every 4 lanes I mean one for every pair.

Get food and drink off the lanes, it is for everyones benefit.
 
Hey

Totally agree with both of you. I work in a bowling centre here in adelaide, and if frustrates me to the point where i dont know why i bother. What people dont realise is that there are nights where you are working flat out for a good three hours, with all lanes going with an average of 5 to a lane.

It is hard at times to keep up with the amount of alcohol and food that is in the player area, but i know that when we have busy nights we always ask the patrons over the PA to keep all food and drink on the benches behind the players area, and any problems with pins or balls in the gutters to get a staff member to clear it away.

when our centre has a tournament the next day, at the end of the night or when it goes quiet many of us are cleaning and preparing the centre for the next day.

catcha's later

Brad
 
Ive worked for AMF centres and now for an independant centre and have never seen any centre let behaviour like this be tolerated...... Not sure what centre you bowl in but it sounds like its got some problems.............
 
I agree that it is a big problem in SOME centres, the standard of behaviour is completely unacceptable in the place I play at.
Unfortunately, the staff can't always do everything at the same time e.g : serve a counter full of customers and whilst thier back is turned some c***-smoker is running down the lanes and carrying on as they don't have six pairs of hands and eyes on the backs of thier heads.

It would be ideal, especially seeing as though alcohol is being served (and quite often abused) that security should be on the doors of centres - but who's going to pay for it?

We've had bouncers on the doors down here at intermittent times during the past 30-years (I remember former army commando, the late Ron Jensen bouncing blokes down the stairs for giving lip when I was a kid at Moonah) :lol:
He was a great bouncer, cared about the centre, an NEVER took shit from anyone EVER - me included :D

I've seen some things that have gone on in the past of which has left me totally speechless :eek: :shock:

Bowlers crashing into the pins, bowlers throwing balls at rakes while mechanics are working behind them, drunks wanting to fight staff, kids running all of the lanes (while thier dickhead parents laugh at thier 'ootsy cutesy little darlings' doing this :x makes wanna f******' puke :x
So I've taken to having a crack at them now, I roared at this young bloke one night about walking down the lanes, then I explained to him what happens when shoes get covered in oil and how you slip when this happens and when you slip you might crack your scon open - he stayed behind the line after that every time :lol:

I'm led to believe that many centres on the mainland are slowly but surely outlawing food and drink being consumed in the seating or on the approaches because of previous problems.

One of the approaches here was ruined when Glow Zone first started up and free peanuts were handed out to them, which in turn ended up on the approach and the oil from the peanuts seeped in to it - it's still like it now.

If you take a look through www.bowltech.com you might find other examples of this sort of behaviour.

I think it might take a centre being sued before the problem is rectified, I saw in Northern England a social bowler walked down a lane (despite signs all over the place saying not to because it was dangerous) and retrieved his ball from the gutter, he then bowled, slipped and did himself a nasty injury, and then *unbelievably* sued the centre - AND WON THE CASE :eek:
The presiding judge ruled that even though the signs said not to walk down the lanes, they didn't signify how oil could be transferred onto a pair of rental shoes and would cause one to slip whilst executing a shot :? :roll:

The best example of this stupidity I ever saw was one night at Moonah a couple of months ago, while I was out having a smoke I saw some dumb chick walk outside in house shoes and stand in a massive puddle caused by the pouring rain, I told her to replace them when she went back inside because she would fall over.
Anyway, this dumb-ass did the same thing a further FOUR TIMES :x
And jumped up and down in the puddle when I walked out the door to leave :shock: I told her the spak racks were up the top end for when she comes in next, 'cos she'll need them to put in front of her wheelchair if she falls over next time

Stupidity is one thing - IGNORANCE IS ANOTHER!!

It's the ladies on the counter I feel sorry for, they must be at thier wits end.

PS - Clint, your centre (Fairlanes City) looks great, I had a look at the website the other night, it's certainly an improvement on what it was when I bowled in it 10 years ago - was very a dark dingy old place then - looked a lot like Devonport back then.

Sorry about the Bible length post - just my $14.65 worth :wink:
 
i work down at rosebud bowl and we have a strict no alchohol policy there so we dont have the problem with grog but we have the problem of people plainly ignoring warning signs and its company policy as im sure it is in all centers "for your own safety stay behind the foul lines". it is one of the most frustrating things but with all lanes running with an ave of 5 on each lane then it becomes very difficult to prevent people going over the lines or eating and drinking in the players area.
 
mechanics

Having just recently bowled in the Gold Cup for another year I noticed that whenever there was dead wood or a machine problem that required the mechanics to actually enter the pit area they never drop the sweep for protection to not only themselves but the equipment as well. Having worked on 82/70's the first thing I was taught was to always drop the sweep when standing pins or entering the pin deck. Speaking to Sue and Shane last night it appears there is a reason they cant do this. Something to do with getting the machine onto second cycle. Maybe a Brunswick mechanic out there can enlighten me.........just curious....Baron
 
I thought with Brunswick machines, you could shut off the power, and still drop the rake, then while the machine was still powered off, lift it back up and re-latch it.

On the 30's, we either used a pin fork to remove the deadwood. With 70's/90's it's a ot easier with the sweep reverse switch.

Not so much a worry with tournament bowlers, but with social play, can be nasty.... I don't recommend being a target, as I found out the hard way ;)
 
Correct me if i'm wrong, but this is the process that i have been taught on 82/70's.
Put machine on first ball, cycle machine and turn machine off when sweep just hits the deck. Clear any dead wood or respot pins. Turn machine back on (machine continues to cycle by itself). The machine is now on 2nd ball.
 
Saw a good one the other day. I was at the bowl for training last Tuesday, & being school holidays there were quite a number of younger people at the bowl. This one idiot was swinging his arms around trying to show off. He managed to knock one of the overhead signs from it's hook, on to the lane. He then proceeded to walk down the lane to the arrows to pick the sign up & attempt to put it back up again. The irony is, the signs are warning not to walk on the lane.

My pet hate is the parents that take really young children (9 & under) to the bowl but make no attempt to control their behaviour. So many times in practice I've been forced to bowl next to such a group, with them constantly walking onto my approach whilst I'm bowling. I'm a bit of a power player, & on more occasions than I'd like to remember I've nearly cleaned up children such as these. I fear the day I finally do hit one of them, 'cause I dont think they will get back up again. :-({|=
 
Funny you mention that Brett, I recall a time about 3-4 years ago here, when the manager at the time had let his two little toddlers, maybe 2 or 3 year olds, run around at the bowl during league.

All of a sudden they are having a big giggle, running around on the approaches about 6 lanes to the right of the last team on Lane 14.

All good, no open play bowling going on, from 15 to 24, only problem is the little takkas decide to run along the approach.

I'm on the approach on Lane 11 I think it was, take three steps into my approach and two little kiddies come screaming past me on the approach - LUCKILY, I managed to stop - this was in the days when I used wind up and throw a ball VERY hard, and weighed about 100kgs :shock:
I put the ball down on the Sure-Stick.....er Pik :D and look across, and one of the other guys in the league further down doesn't hear the kids coming and has to take evasive action to avoid hitting them, he was even bigger than I was back then and was inches away from walloping to toddlers with a 16lb ball.
I remember some lady walking up and grabbing the two kids by the hand and taking them off the appproach before they got seriously hurt.
It isn't the kids fault - they were babies and didn't know - where was the parental supervision here.
Thank Christ nothing happened to them :(
 
I have had the same sort of thing happen. I have recently been prebowling a bit due to tournaments, and in the school holidays there were many small children running rampant in the centre on all of the lanes. I asked one of the staff if they could please try and tell the family on the next lane (namely the parents so they could control the children) about the danger of running around on approaches as another bowler is about to bowl a ball. The response I got was a quick shake of the head and they said something along the lines of "sorry I can't make them do this or that".

I walked away in disbelief... I mean if you collect a kid, who takes the blame...the bowler or the centre...or the parent :?:

I think more effort needs to be taken to educate parents about safety and the neccessary control of their young children. It's not just very annoying, it's dangerous
 
Back
Top Bottom