Expired Licence, Unofficial Equipment, Quiet Paperwork

Problems, roughly in order of severity:

1. You are unlicensed. Security work without a valid licence is an offence for both the guard and the employer. It also voids your position entirely: you would be a private citizen in a jacket, with no professional standing and no coverage if something goes wrong.
2. Untrained, unauthorised weapons. A baton or handcuffs you are not trained and authorised to carry are, at minimum, a liability and could support a weapons-related charge.
3. An instruction to avoid police and suppress a report. Both are integrity issues and both destroy the evidential value of anything you do tonight.
4. Uniform concerns. Nothing in the uniform should suggest police or emergency services; a "911" sleeve patch invites exactly that impression.

Before the shift: do not sign on. Tell the operations manager, in writing (text is fine, keep it), that you cannot work until your licence status is resolved, and notify your employer. Offer the lawful alternatives: the manager or another licence holder covers access control and the door, and police are called for any fight. If you stay in the building, stay as a patron-employee, not as security.

Use of force by anyone in Ontario must be reasonable and proportionate - the minimum necessary, and only to stop the immediate problem. A baton used on patrons in a bar fight is very hard to justify, and handcuffs on a person you have no lawful authority to detain look like an unlawful arrest.

What I would do:

• Do not take the baton or cuffs. No training, no authorisation, no need for them.
• Create distance and time. Separate the two people verbally, get staff between the group and the rest of the room, move patrons back, kill the music, turn up the lights. Most bar fights end faster when the audience disappears.
• Call 911. A fight in a licensed premises is a police matter; the manager's wish to avoid a "liquor licence headache" is not a lawful basis to leave a violent situation unaddressed. Note that failing to call can be the bigger licensing problem.
• Only intervene physically to protect someone from imminent harm, and then only to separate and disengage.

Afterwards, report the use of force - even the minimal contact I used - to my employer under company policy, because accountability for force is a core Code of Conduct expectation.

Documentation is not optional and is not triggered by a complaint. Write it the same night, while the times are still reliable.

In the incident report: date, time and location; description of the two patrons and how they were identified; what started it (what I saw, heard, and was told, with the source of each); the exact wording of anything significant; who was injured and how it was treated; the times police were called and arrived, and the officers' names and badge numbers; my actions and staff actions; witnesses and their contact details; the manager's instructions to me; the removal and where the persons went. Facts and observations only - no labels like "drunk idiot" and no medical conclusions.

Reports to: my employer's operations manager the same night by phone, with the written report submitted per policy; my employer's report to the client; and the police occurrence number in the file. The instruction not to call police and not to write a report goes in my own memo book and up my chain of command in writing - that is a separate integrity matter from the fight itself.