 Hello, everyone. Thank you very much for joining this important webinar. We're going to wait a moment to just let people usher in and then we'll start in just a few seconds. Thank you. Hello, everyone. Again, thank you so much for joining this important webinar today. My name is Ariel pallets. I'm the executive director for the city's office of nightlife. For those of you who don't know, we are a dedicated non enforcement liaison between the city and the nightlife industry. Welcome to our focus on safety and harm reduction, which is the purpose of this webinar today. We also work to support nightlife businesses through the opening and operating process as well as recovery. We help to resolve quality of life issues and relationships between venues and their neighbors, as well as elevate and promote nightlife culture. So always if you have any issues or questions about your nightlife venue or neighbor, feel free to reach out to us at nightlife at media.nyc.gov. We'll have a slide at the end. This webinar is part of a new series of courses the office of nightlife launched called night school or nightlife industry training and education, which is held both virtually and in person. This is a series to share resources and trainings for owners workers as well as patrons addressing how to best engage with city agencies, and how to improve safety and quality of life. To find out more information about all of our nightlife courses at nyc.gov slash night school that's nite school. The safety and well being of the nightlife community is a top priority for the office. We know that our nightlife spaces are places where people can look out for each other, and where we all do our part to create safer spaces. That's what we're doing here today to make sure people know just know how to party safer. As it is often the case when we are talking about health and safety issues. I want to make sure to note that these incidents, unfortunately can happen anywhere at any time in any setting, not just nightlife. We're not talking about nightlife problems. We're talking about light city issues where we can all just be better prepared. It's important to be as prepared as possible when going out at night or wherever you are. Anything can happen anywhere anytime so it's up to us to stay vigilant and to be aware of our surroundings and to be conscious at all times. So we encourage you to be a harder target by taking some of these preemptive measures and to keep yourself safe. That's why we have asked our partners from the anti violence project or AVP to be here tonight to give a presentation on how to stay safe in New York, nightlife, and we're excited to partner with them to bring us some tools and tips. Before we do that, we're also extremely pleased to be joined by another partner and champion for nightlife safety and the LGBTQ community. My friend, our council member Eric botcher council member botcher thank you so much to you and your staff for being such a strong voice on this important issue and everyone please help me welcome council member botcher. Thank you so much Ariel really appreciate you and your office for taking a leading role on this issue I also want to thank AVP for all the work you're doing to help keep people safe right now. I've said that I think New York is in a golden age of nightlife right now in my district alone in council district three we've had a number of new establishments open, particularly with the LGBTQ community. We've got a number of queer nightlife establishments that have opened in house kitchen and it's been an exciting time, especially after going through the pandemic that we've been going through and all that time inside. It's so great to be out and with other people and experiencing all the reasons why we live here in New York the electricity in the air and, and all the excitement. But we've also had some unfortunate. Incidents right and that includes the number of overdoses in New York that have reached all time highs and it's been happening around the country it's been happening here in New York. It's partly attributed to the presence of fentanyl in all kinds of recreational drugs and people are dying and and getting very sick. So, people really need to know the facts about that and be armed with the tools to help keep themselves safe. So, we've had some really terrible incidents of people being victimized in nightlife venues, the horrible cases of people who've been killed and and drug and the authorities have made some arrests they've made some arrests against people who've done this, but there's other cases that are still unsolved. Julio Ramirez and john Umberger, who were both found dead after attending after leaving nightlife venues and hills kitchen. And we are still awaiting news on that investigation and while the authorities are sure us that they are actively investigating this and that they have all possible resources assigned to bring in the people responsible for that to justice. We are sure that everyone has the information and the and the and knows all the tips and has all the tools to keep themselves safe when going out and enjoying New York and that's what this forum is about. All the information that we've been putting out all the flaring all the, all the conversations we've been having with patrons and establishment owners. This forum is really to make sure that everyone has all the information to keep themselves safe to keep their patrons safe. So I really want to thank Ariel and all your colleagues at the Office of Nightlife and everyone at AVP for for putting this together. Thank you so much council member and we really appreciate your partnership and your love of nightlife in New York. It is truly why we're all here we love it. And it's important to make sure that it's safe for everyone. And with that said, I'll also mention our Narcan behind every bar program which is in partnership with the Department of Health to help all nightlife workers as well as patrons be trained on how to administer Narcan in the event of an unintentional overdose in a nightlife space. So please also find that information on our night school agenda and we will drop a link into our chat as well. But really the best thing is prevention and knowing how to keep yourself safe and New York City street smarts is really the way to do it and that's why we brought in AVP so without further ado, I'm going to introduce the AVP team to conduct this training. But a quick housekeeping note is to please use the Q&A feature in the zoom to let us know your questions throughout the meeting and after the presentation, we'll have additional time to answer the Q&A. This meeting is being recorded in live stream to Facebook and a recording will be made available to share with staff colleagues and neighbors who were not able to attend this webinar. So now I'd like to introduce today's training and the team at AVP. I'm proud to welcome Audisha, as well as Aditi and Ori. Thank you very much for being with us today and for sharing this important information. Thank you so much. AVP is so happy to be here today. My name is Audisha Ray. I take they and she pronouns. I'm the director of community organizing and public advocacy at AVP, and I will also ask my co-penalists to introduce themselves. I was waiting for Ori, but since Ori was probably waiting for me, I will introduce myself to everyone. Hi everyone. My name is Aditi Patacharya. I use she and her pronouns. I'm the deputy director of client services at AVP and I am just so happy to be over here. Thank you for having us. Ori, now over to you. Hi everyone. I'm Ori, given some of the director of communications for AVP, I use he and pronouns and very happy that we could join you all and partner on this really important topic tonight. So just a bit of an overview of how we're going to proceed through about the hour that we have together. So we wanted to share some of the bar safety tips that we have generated over the years. And then also talk, so talk specifically about how patrons can use different tips and tactics to stay safe to think through how they want to move through the world and nightlife. So we're going to talk a little bit about safety planning for venues. So if you are a bar manager or a nightlife host, that section is for you. We also will talk a little bit about how we look out for each other and some de-escalation tactics. So, you know, being safe and bars right now is extremely complex and sensitive topic because we know that we're talking both about the situation that has been ongoing in health kitchen with folks being drugged and assaulted and robbed. So we are also talking about the bigger picture of safety of our LGBTQ spaces, particularly in the wake of the shooting Colorado Springs. So this training is meant to give you some things to think about some questions to be asking yourselves your friends your colleagues to start to think about what what does it look like to make safety together. And then we'll turn it over to a DT to share a bit about AVP and the initial round of safety tests. Sure thing. So a little background about who we are and what we do. AVP is the largest organization in the country right now that does anti violence work that serves LGBTQ and HIV impacted survivors of all kinds of violence you can see our mission over here states that are it is to empower LGBTQ and HIV effective communities and allies to end all forms of violence and we do that through organizing through education through direct support of survivors through counseling and advocacy. So something that is specific about AVP background that makes it unique to other folks who are doing anti violence work whether that's in New York or even nationally is the all kinds of violence so typically anti violence organizations may stress on domestic violence violence on sexual violence, etc. But in reference to and in response to the realities of where communities that we serve come from and their locus of experience of harm. We also look at a sort of global understanding of violence and the intersections of violence whether that is familial that is community of choice or of origin systems that are involved in perpetuating harm and violence compounding that to cause survivorship in very particular ways for LGBTQ and HIV impacted folks. And we do all of our anti violence work whether that is through organizing through direct services of counseling of systems care and advocacy, also known as case management. So we have a bilingual 24 seven hotline. You will see the hotline information repeated across the rest of our presentation to you. But just as a reference it's two one two seven one four one one four one. We have a global vibrant hotline training program that in fact is going on right now are our Jan Feb cohort actually started just a couple days ago so we're in the thick of training a new batch of people to become certified rape crisis advocates and hotline volunteers. So we have all of these different platforms and gateways if you will to connect with community and for community to connect with us where our work intersects with each other is the work that Dacia does through organizing and advocacy with their team connects with community on the ground and such as today we provide education we do outreach we also get the pulse on where community is at and what their needs are. And these pieces of intelligence if you will formed and source from community also intersect with in very organic and meaningful ways with the information that we glean from community members who are experiencing violence or have witnessed violence and want to report it for themselves for people that they care about through our hotline program and from other organizations that may refer survivors of violence or LGBTQ or HIV impacted to come and work with us. So we work very closely with each other. Another very important vertical to our work is the legal program so we have attorneys and paralepals that do all men of civil and family court advocacy and legal representation. Again on issues that intersect with violent survivorship for members of community in New York City. And I think I have covered pretty much all of the major verticals that we take care of in AVP. I do want to emphasize the last part about our approach, we aspire to and hold ourselves accountable to doing anti violence work in a way that is anti oppressive and is deeply and profoundly trauma informed. We know that survivors know what it is that they need, they know what they have been through and all of the work that we do in all of our different departments is very much centered in advancing the needs of community that is informed by them and for them. Who should I be kicking it to next. It's still you. Okay it's still me. Alright. So a little bit about the safety tips. In the spirit of doing the work something that we do sort of as the ground up in all of our outreach work anti violence work is really understanding practical and community centric ways that respond to the needs of community and how to keep themselves safe. So in the space of nightlife, knowing as where we are right now and how we're located both in the vibrancy of nightlife that the council member mentioned, and also the very real reality of the many spaces and the many ways in which this exposure to an environment with nightlife can also open us up to all manner of risk. Some of the techniques and some of the tips that we're offering you right now are understandably super practical. And some of it is fairly self explanatory. Use your tech and alert your friends of where you are the alerting and this is something that has come up if any of you have been involved in any of the movements and the activism work that has been so vibrant in our years. This is something that has come up in those spaces as well and is therefore informed by the same. You may have a couple of people you consider chosen fam or you consider people that you are close to. Let them know where you're going. Let them know from time to time where you are. Let them know if you are okay and give them have an agreement with these people or even this person of whether there is a safety word that you want to use an innocuous safety word that you may want to text to them, or if you want maybe a set of numbers that you want to send them, or, you know, a way in which you come up with a code that lets them know, and you know that perhaps you are in a situation where you are not feeling safe, and they would need to intervene or would call you or would, and, you know, would work with whoever is the venue administrator or the manager or something to that effect. They were able to escalate the situation and get more people involved when you are if you are with a group of people. Again, same thing, if this is not connecting with somebody who's not in the space with you have one person that perhaps you trust if you are in a group of people who you can keep abreast of how you are doing and you can also connect with them and make sure that both of you are keeping watch on each other's activities and just checking in from time to time to make sure that everything is okay and that you are feeling well in the space that you are in. The second one that we recommend over here is super relevant. Passcode is not face ID to protect your phone and your data. So face ID is super easy and is super at this point in time ubiquitous. However, using old school if you will techniques and having and making sure that you use a passcode and sort of I guess in the same in the same vein as any password. And that is not like a whole host of zeros or 12345 but something perhaps that is more personalized to you, make sure that you use that over face ID, because face ID evidently is easier for someone to use they can scan your face without your consent. And that is when you are not aware, and that is something that could then open you up to more tech violence and, and this is just an easier way to sort of scale back in the, you know, in the scale of technology and access the scale back step to make sure that we can lock in a little bit more safety for you. Next will use substance, and you are an in the spirit of trauma informed care and community informed care, you know what your limits are, you know what you need to do to keep yourself safe, be mindful of how much you are consuming. And if you are deciding that you are going to consume more than again going back to safety tip number one, make sure that someone that you trust, and you can stay in contact with is able to make sure that they check in on you. So that your whereabouts are known, your status is known, and you are as grounded and as situated as can be in that particular space. And the last one really is the most important and all of our trauma work I am a clinician and I work with clients and with community members and direct services. This is something that comes up in all of our counseling and hotline work multiple times. One's gut does not lie. So if you are in a situation where you are not sure of who you are with. If you get what I call itchy tummy trust itchy tummy. If you are feeling somewhere in yourself in your body that something is not feeling right, then trust that instinct, all of us in community who are in public spaces and have been in, you know, and have, and live vibrant social lives. We know if something is off. And that gut instinct really is something that one can never underestimate the value of. So if you feel like something is off, again, going back to safety tip number one, whoever is your safe person, let them know. And I guess, yeah, just follow your gut instinct. And something that I want to also include over here. And I know that this will come up in our in the later parts of our conversation is feel free to connect with a B P. Our website has easy access for people to report if something is going on for them are hotline and we also have text chat available on our hotline. Know that there is always availability for you to contact the hotline and to speak live to a person who is able to them in the moment safety plan with you as well we have had people who have contacted us from the bathroom, or have gone into a separate space and I can also say that even our hotline volunteers in fact one of my my direct supervisor and one of our oldest serving staff members, if you will, with ABP she joined as a volunteer herself with ABP for the hotline and is now the director of plant services. She has taken calls when she was in nightlife as well. So members of community are doing community stuff when they are also addressing hotline calls and so you can rest assured that if you contact us you will speak to somebody live who will be able to actually connect with you in the moment and can do some very on the ground practical safety planning for you. If you are unable to reach your safe person. So those tips that a DT shared are also available in a tip sheet that has a couple of additional pieces of information on it on our bar safety landing page on our website. We'll drop a link to that you can download a pretty version of the tip sheet and also if you work in nightlife. We're going to share some more information about how you can access deeper resources to support your, your patrons and staff and other people in the space. So, as I mentioned before, you know, our safety is becoming much more complex is certainly not just about individuals, making sure that they're taking care of themselves and their people, but also for venues and hosts to really think about what goes into keeping a space safe for LGBTQ people. So, we want to share a little bit from some of the venue safety planning work that that we've been doing over the past couple of years. One thing I'll say about this is that this, this is also an entire training of its own. If you are a host or a manager of a nightlife venue. ABP is happy to come through your space and do training with staff hosts, community members, and we'll also show that that link that can be accessed from the bar safety link, or I think there's a drop down thing that's happening that's blocking up the screen. So, in thinking about venue safety planning. There are kind of three main things that we encourage staff and hosts and managers to think and talk about amongst themselves amongst the folks who are making decisions in your space. And also, you know, your staff. So folks are informed about the conversations that you're having really the most basic, most useful and honestly most overlooked piece of doing safety planning for your venue or your event is having that kind of like internal map or even like drawing it out on a whiteboard or chalkboard or something of who are the community members and the neighbors around your venue that could be called on for support. And particularly in thinking about off hours nightlife. So would you connect with folks like is there, you know, I know that next door can be a pain, but is there other ways that you connect with other folks in the neighborhood, who know your venue, support what you're doing, and are concerned about the safety of your space. So just talking to people even having like a what that with some of the other bars in the area. It's really helpful, because that way you can share information about like if there's a problem patron who has been circulating, or a pattern of robberies or other things that that folks have been seeing locally, just sharing that information, among each other is is super super helpful. The second thing that we advocate that that folks do is something called a venue environmental scan. And this is something that ADP can also walk alongside you and doing. And so this is basically just thinking about, you know, we all have fire safety plans also in place but thinking about like what are the entrances and exits. Who's on staff on a typical night. How do you communicate with them on the floor. And really thinking about the kind of little quirks of your space. And in the worst case scenario that even thinking about how would you do an emergency exit. Where are their places where folks could hide or create a barrier is that the bar is that tables are part of the space. So that's one of the things that that folks think about when they're doing that that venue environmental scan. And the thing that's tricky about scanning the space is that a lot of our spaces changed on a very regular basis depending on what kind of event is happening so it's something that needs to be done on a regular basis to really think about okay the way we have a configured tonight means a different thing for how people move around the space. The last thing that we strongly encourage folks to talk about within their, their staff and communities is what are your thoughts and feelings about involving the police. Police in New York have a long history of anti BIPOC and anti LGBTQ actions. A lot of us know that the police are not necessarily there to support us. And a lot of us have had great success with involving the police and helping them to keep us safe. And one thing to be aware of is that in New York City there is LGBTQ NYPD liaison, who can be very helpful if you as particularly if you contact them in advance. They're not the folks that come when you call 911. But when you reach out to them and reach out to community affairs has an LGBTQ unit. Those folks can be super helpful and helping you make a safety plan and instead of being caught unprepared and and thinking on your feet, really thinking through who are the folks in your community that you would call, including police. What is going on in your neighborhood in your environment and your mind in your venue that can support people and getting to safety and what are the things that that could be barriers. So that's a very small taste of how we think through this this venue planning safety planning for spaces for events. And like I said, we're more than happy to help and support folks do this very specifically with their own staff and their own space. Okay, if you can move to the next. Thanks. So, we also really stress that this is a community process of looking out for each other supporting everybody who's who's in the space. And one of the things that we wanted to share with you all is this this de escalation the series of de escalation tactics so one of the trainings that a VP offers is called a bystander intervention training. And it's specifically designed for folks in public transit and public spaces. When they see harassment or harm happening and want to do something about it but don't want to get hurt and will help de escalate and help people move along. So I'm going to share the five days piece of this which I think is a very helpful set of things to know for anyone who's who's out in my life and public spaces, thinking about ways to manage the situation and try to de escalate something that's going sideways. So, the thing that most people think of most immediately in a DS a situation that needs de escalating is that they think about directly confronting the person who is making fuss causing harm, or harassing someone. So that's the kind of go to form that that people go to when they're thinking about how to interrupt a situation. It is actually not always the best way to to reduce violence, because it can actually sometimes escalate depending on on what's going on. So who the person is who is harassing or causing harm. It can actually escalate when you directly challenge that person. So some of the other things that we wanted to offer up as possibilities are some of these other for these. So delegate is the second one in a situation where you're in a group space. One of the things that can be most helpful to do is to look around and see who's there and delegate different tasks to different people so you could turn to someone and say hey, can you go let the bartender know that that something while it's happening over here. Well I keep an eye on the situation. We really encourage people to think about the ways that this is a community and participatory process, and not a moment for people to be saviors or heroes to really think about what are the resources around you, and who are the people around you that have been helped. The third one is distract, which is a personal favorite of mine. So, in a situation where there is harassment or harm happening. So the first goal really is to de-escalate to make the moment break so that the harm that is happening completely stops happening. And one of the ways to do this is actually to create a distraction. Some of the examples that we use particularly in public transit are like asking people for directions. Making a noise in a different part of the space. Doing something performative and confusing that just really just breaks the moment and makes folks look away and look at okay what's happening over here. And that can give you a chance to move the person who's who's being targeted out of the space and create a moment that just shifts what's happening in any kind of situation where there is harassment or harm happening. And that is not actually to get the person doing harm to see the error of their ways, it's just to get it to stop. And distractions can be very helpful in that way. The fourth one delay is really focused on kind of doing after care. So, one of the things that is really important to think about when situations unfolding is how to make sure that the person who's receiving the hate. Knows that the other people are there for them so this can be used in conjunction with a lot of the other strategies and can help folks to just kind of check in after something has been de escalated to see how they're doing what kind of support they need. And really it can just be as basic as, hey, I saw that I was fucked up. I'm here if you want to talk it through, or do you need support getting home or anything like that. The last one is document. And this is, you know, in the age of everybody having camera on their phone, something that is extremely prevalent. One of the things that we really encourage is that documenting a situation playing out can be very helpful. And also, the person who is being targeted the person who's the survivor or situation should be asked about what they want to happen with this. They might not want to upload something to the internet immediately they might want to sleep on it, they might want to send it to friends to share, or just think about how they want to use it, or think about if they want to use it and sending to press, or their city council or anything like that. So, part of the process of doing this work is really supporting a person who's being harmed and making some decisions about what they want to happen to restore their sense of safety. Moving to the next one. So, before we get into giving people space for questions. I wanted to share one of the upcoming things that ADP is working on. So, in addition to offering trainings and support for both people who are attending nightlife venues and people who run them in the form of trainings like this one and the more specific ones that you can access for your particular space. Ori has put together a really great set of resources that can be distributed to your space so we can have them posted up in your space so we have these great posters that are good for hanging near bathrooms or other waiting spaces that have information about the ADP hotline as well as QR code for folks to link to information about getting support. We've also created bar coasters, drink coasters that we can distribute as well as stickers with information about the ADP hotline and our bar safety tip sheets. So if you work at a venue that would like a package of these, we are doing a bar safety kit making night next Wednesday, February 8 in the ADP space. So you can use this email community at edp.org, either to RSVP and say that you want to come and help assemble some kits, or if you work at a venue and would like a package to be delivered to you with all this stuff in it. You can also email that you know address and we will get them on their way to you after next week. So this is a, this image on the left is what the poster looks like, and those are included in the distribution of the kit that we're distributing. And this QR code leads you to the registration page. If you want to sign up to join us for that evening of assembling the kits. As it gets warmer, we're also doing a lot more bar outreach in health kitchen and also in other spaces, other neighborhoods and boroughs. So if you work in any neighborhood in New York City and want us to come through, not just to give out these kits to the bar itself, but also for us to talk with patrons. We are more than happy to do that. And again, you can email us at community at edp for us to do that. So we are happy to have feedback and questions. My question to you all is, how do you think these different strategies a strategy of educating venue patrons and managers and thinking about de-escalation tactics. How do those things work together to create a safer environment for our communities. Well, thank you so much for this extraordinary and important presentation today by AVP. We at the office of nightlife really do see the importance in partnering with our community based organizations as well as with council member Eric botcher today to really amplify the incredible resources and important information that already exists to help nightlife places be safer spaces and to help look out for each other. Our purpose really is to gather this information and amplify it. We all know that nightlife is really an asset to our city and not always as it's historically been perceived as a liability. And these conversations and presentations are extraordinarily important now more than ever, as they say, especially as our vibrancy is coming back. And I'm not sure if we have any questions right now, but what's important is that people know how to reach you and how to reach us, whether it be on creating safer spaces for the LGBTQ community, learning how to use Narcan and making sure we have them behind the bar bystander training for harassment prevention, active shooter response training, and also just helping businesses navigate city bureaucracy to make sure the industry and community know that they're supported and loved and cherished by our city. Yes, we have. You've dropped in some requests for training information. You want to share what you just shared in the chat please. I don't know who dropped it in a DT. Yeah, that was me. No, just just to share it out with the full group. So it's a link to more information about our bar safety work and specifically the trainings that we're offering. And so folks can go ahead and and access that on the website. You can also use our website to report incidents of violence so it's not just the hotline. You can also do that online. So those are different ways that folks can access ADP and I'm going to drop the hotline number one more time as well. So folks have that and can paste that into their phone. Ori loves to ask people to just save the hotline number in their phone. So I think, you know, we hope that you never have to use it. So that's where the other thing that I'll say about the hotline to is that folks think of EVP is as being accessible when folks are in active crisis. But actually one of the reasons that folks call the hotline most most regularly is to get help with safety planning that's specific to the situation that they're in and what their life looks like. It's a really helpful resource and, you know, doing some safety planning can can help support you and making choices you need to make to move through through life. And so you do not need to be an active crisis to access EVP services. Thank you. That's a really important point. The whole point of this series of webinars and trainings is really about being proactively prepared and being able to foresee any issues and how to create safer spaces. If you're an owner, or even just how to be more prepared as a patron or performer in the nightlife space. And we really appreciate the important work that you do. And for being with us here today, and we'll be hosting more with you in the future. I encourage everyone to follow the office of nightlife on social at NYC nightlife gov sign up for our newsletter on nyc.gov slash nightlife because we're always hosting new webinars and trainings and sharing information that can be relevant to you. And just know that this is a dedicated non enforcement office to support the nightlife industry and community. And to really appreciate everything that you contribute and to help support you with the daily challenges of running a business at night. So, again, we thank everyone who joined us and taking their time today to council member Eric botcher and his incredible work in support of the nightlife and LGBTQ community team nightlife at the office of nightlife and wishing you all well. Stay safe and healthy. And until we meet again. Thank you so much.