Salinas bar goers consider own safety after SoCal shooting

The shooting in Southern California has people on the Central Coast looking at their own safety.

The mood at Dubber’s Oldtown Bar and Grill in downtown Salinas was business as usual Thursday night.

One man who was meeting up with friends there said the tragedy in Thousand Oaks hit too close to home.

“I have family down in Thousand Oaks and I immediately Facebook-ed them, called them to make sure they were OK this morning,” said David Martinez, a Salinas resident.

He said everyone is safe, and he is not too worried about anything happening here.

“I feel pretty safe here in Salinas, we’re right next to the police office, the police station is right here, really close,” said Martinez. “So if anything does happen, it’s a pretty quick response.”

“We have a very competent, well-trained security staff. They do ID checks, they also check for any other kinds of things that would denote you for…maybe something that we should watch out for coming into the bar such as color, affiliations of things, or excessive tattoos on your face and everything like that,” said Jesus Flores, a manager at Dubber’s.

The bar does have bouncers at the front door to filter people coming in and out. Flores said the security staff are trained to analyze behavior. But active shooters are still a hard thing to predict.

“It’s scary, you know, you have no idea. I travel for work, I’m in high traffic areas and seeing this happen is sad,” said Martinez.

Even with that possibility, people here said they cannot let it stop their lives.

“If there’s always a fear in the back of your head, but if you’re always scared, you don’t do anything. You don’t live. I’d be at home, scared on my couch. And something could happen to me there,” said Amanda Lerma, a Greenfield resident.

“Got to keep everyone safe, but you got to keep everyone happy and drinking responsibly as well. And making sure everyone takes Uber after,” said Flores.

Dubber’s security said they do take other precautions, but did not want to give away all their safety measures.