For bouncers at college bars, Halloween costumes can be tricky

Being a bouncer at a college bar is a tough job. You have to be able to quickly scan IDs from all over the country, spot the fakes and match photos to bar-hoppers who are constantly changing hairstyles and facial hair.

Halloween is a whole new game. This is the championship round of door-manning.

There are wigs, face paint, stick-on facial hair, rubber masks, fake noses and oversized glasses. A costume can suddenly make a bar-hopper look way older or younger or just different enough that the doorman has to do a double-take, making the line move slower on an already busy night.

At the "Hoya Halloween" party at the Tombs in Georgetown on Thursday night, a parade of characters traipsed down the stairs to the underground bar and presented their IDs to bow-tie-wearing doormen Armando Cardoso and Basil El-Dabh.

It's the first Halloween season for the two, both 21-year-old seniors at Georgetown.

After working several months, they have perfected the art of spotting underage drinkers before even looking at the ID -- the way they try to blend in with a huge group, their nervous darting eyes and their willingness to quickly leave the bar if asked a single question. It's usually just common sense.

One night a student tried to get in with a 25-year-old's ID. Dabh recognized him. "This kid sits in front of me in economics. He's not 25," said Cleveland native Dabh.

"Or you have a whole group of people who are 21, and then one who is 37," said Cardoso, a finance and accounting major from Miami.

But what happens when face paint, wigs and other disguises are thrown into the mix? Does dressing up as someone else build confidence in pretending to be the person on the ID?

"It's going to get tricky," Cardoso said. "We're just going to have to look at their height, eyes. You just get a feel for them."

Thursday night there was a referee with black grease paint under her eyes, a pilot with a hat drooping over her eyes, a Viking wearing a helmet with long blond braids and Twiddle-Dee and Twiddle-Dumb jumping around in matching jumpsuits. A guy wearing four polo shirts with all four collars popped proudly exclaimed, "I'm a Georgetown!" The bouncers rolled their eyes.

A diner waitress in a pink dress, white apron and support pantyhose handed over her Texas driver's license and posed with a hand running through her short bob of bleached-blonde, curly hair.