DRUG BUSTS: PART OF THE FLOOR SHOW?

Imagine the scenario: You're glitzed in your finest nightclub attire,
girating next to your friends on table tops to the pulse of techno
beats - a regular Friday night at your favorite dance club. Suddenly
the lights blare on, the CD scratches to silence and you look up,
straight into the barrel of a machine gun.

"Everybody relax - this is a drug bust," booms the command from a
platoon of policemen straddling the bar-top.

Sounds dramatic, but according to club owners, such an occurrence is
neither unusual nor threatening.

"Club raids are standard," said one club owner whose club was the
target of one of the Tourism Police's most recent raids. "All
nightclubs in the world have problems with the police. What happens
here is nothing compared to what happens in the United States."

Raids have the implicit intention of weeding drugs out by shaking up
club-goers.

Increasingly, rather than target the drugs themselves, international
authorities are busting the clubs, which are considered breeding
grounds for uppers like Ecstasy and cocaine - narcotics used to
enhance the effect of trance or techno music.

In Lebanon, raids are undertaken by the Tourism Police, a branch of
the Interior Ministry that deals specifically with restaurants,
nightclubs, and pubs. A spokesman from the department described their
duties as "the right to raid whenever we want, whomever we want."

He added that raids are carried out daily.

Commandant Maher Halabi, head of the Tourism Police, could not comment
on the department's policies due to lack of clearance from the
Internal Security Forces.

As for the consequences of the raids, club owners seem to have it
right that the Lebanese penal code is more lenient than in other countries.

The United States and Britain, for example, have laws that call for
the immediate closing of any venue that sells or allows the use of
drugs.

One prevalent urban legend describes club floors coated in a white
carpet, presumably coke emptied from pockets before the police can pad
dancers down. Often the presence of drugs on the floor is enough to
close a club down.

Here raids seem to involve more theatrics than investigation. At a
recent bust at BO18, the popular trance-techno club in Qarantina,
about a dozen officers armed with machine guns surrounded the
underground nightclub. Three flashed lights from atop the bar while a
squad stood astride the open roof, pointing guns down into the crowd.

Other officers milled through the club, frisking attendants at random.
Search completed, the lights went out and the music was on before the
officers were out the door.

"It wasn't too scary," said one witness of the BO18 raid. "But it was
a bit reminiscent of the war, with officers flashing around machine
guns. There were some foreigners sitting next to me who thought it was
a hijacking."

The raid had rumors flying that the club was closed down. According to
club owner Naji Gibran, the club did not close and had no problems
with the authorities.

Gibran shrugged off the incident, saying he wasn't worried because
police raids are to be expected. He asserted that the club takes
special precautions to prevent drug use, including bouncers and
undercover authorities.

There are more serious cases. Four years ago, the Culture Club, a
trance nightclub in Kaslik, was closed down after repeated drug raids.
One goer recalled that the frequency of raids deterred clientele. But
club owners seem to agree that the raids are nothing new and nothing
to fear.