An antidote to overdose is becoming a tricky issue in some nightclubs
On a Thursday evening last October, Ryan Carlos set off the metal detectors at the door of Brooklyn Steel, a popular music venue in Williamsburg. A guard pulled him aside, patted him on the ground and ordered him to take out his pockets.
He pulled out a box of Narcan — a nasal spray version of the drug naloxone — which can reverse overdoses caused by opioids like fentanyl in seconds.
“He interrupted me abruptly and said, ‘I know what it is. You have to throw it away or you can’t get in,” Mr. Carlos said in an interview.
On social media and online message boards, other partygoers have posted about similar encounters — including aggressive questioning by security guards — at other locations, including Warsaw and Basement, and at the Twilight Harbor festival held at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in October.
The locations blame overzealous and poorly trained security guards. But the incidents are at odds with a city initiative known as ‘NARCAN Behind Every Bar,’ which was launched last year to deliver the life-saving antidote to clubs, bars and venues across the city.
“Everyone should have naloxone on them,” says Dr. Ashwin Vasan, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. “It certainly shouldn’t be taken away from you.”
The incidents highlight the challenges the city faces in addressing a troubling trend: A New Yorker dies from a drug overdose every three hours, according to the Department of Health. In 2022, more than 3,000 people died from drug overdoses in the city. Officials expect 2023 to be even worse.
But these efforts have been fraught: A federal prosecutor recently questioned the legality of the safe injection sites. And law enforcement faces a difficult balance as they try to stop drug distribution in the city without criminalizing users.
Fentanyl – which is 30 to 50 times more powerful than heroin – was found in 81 percent of the city’s more than 3,000 drug overdose deaths last year. according to to the Ministry of Health. But because the opioid is often mixed with other drugs, such as cocaine, it can be difficult to recognize, meaning many people who buy drugs on the street end up using it unknowingly.
Because more than 7 percent of deaths in 2022 occurred in “public inside” spaces, including bars and clubs, the city has turned to those places for help. For the most part, Dr. Vasan said, “nightlife has been a great partner,” and he believes cases like Mr. Carlos’s are isolated.
Many bar and club owners said they were happy to help. Some bars also offer fentanyl test strips to customers.
Dennis Dennehy, a spokesman for Bowery Presents, which operates Brooklyn Steel, was notified after seeing the incident Mr. Carlos’s post on the media platform X.
“With Bowery Presents, Narcan can be brought to all locations, and we keep it on site,” he said.
In an email, Tyler Myers, co-founder and executive director of Knockdown Center, which operates Basement, said: “We do not and never have confiscated Narcan.” The statement said the location is holding Narcan throughout the facility and has been holding training for staff. Operators of Warsaw and the Twilight Harbor festival did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
Other location owners speculated that a lack of awareness could be behind the decisions to confiscate Narcan.
“If security takes customers away, it’s probably because they’re misinformed,” says Jon Corbett, owner of Eris, a Brooklyn location that stocks Narcan on site.
To become a registered security guard, one must complete hours of training provided by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. But Janine Kava, a spokeswoman for the agency, confirmed that no training on opioid overdose prevention was required as part of the two courses people must take to obtain a license, although it was offered as an optional ‘ refresher course’.
John Barclay, the owner of the popular dance clubs Paragon and Bossa Nova Civic Club, thinks security guards may also assume that people carrying Narcan intend to use illegal drugs.
“Probably half of the people who carry it aren’t doing drugs at all,” he said. “They’re just good Samaritans.”
Brooklyn Steel’s owners noted that security was handled by a third-party company, 5280 Group, which also operates in six other locations in New York.
In a statement, the company said the security guard who confronted Mr. Carlos had recently been hired and was “overzealous,” adding that “the incident was a teachable moment.” Since that evening, the company said it has incorporated reminders of its Narcan policy into the nightly meeting that security guards attend before each shift begins.