The night crawlers

Bashir Bassatne, the 30-year-old co-owner of Mandaloun, Asia and the soon-to-be-relaunched Rai, three of the biggest nightclubs on the Beirut’s nightlife circuit, is in a reflective mood. “I don’t think any clubs really hit their targets this summer. A lot of newcomers have entered the market with no experience in the club scene,” he said. “Some made money and some are going to lose a lot of money. It’s not going to last. It’s just a trend. The club business will go back to the people who know how to run it.”Over the last few years, Beirut’s flourishing but fickle nightclub sector has indeed become a magnet for young, wealthy, often foreign-educated, Lebanese wanting to cash in on an industry high on glamour and where the returns appear tantalizingly quick. Often using family money, these playboys-turned-club owners have pumped as much as $1 million each into a sector worth an