Night Life Creeps Back Into West Beirut

Night life is creeping back to once glamorous West Beirut, for years a hotbed of street battles, kidnapings and terror, as war-weary Lebanese look for some fun.

“Lebanese are aggressive and unpredictable people. You can’t tie them to their TV set. . . . They want to go out and mix. Just give them peace and quiet and they will surprise you,” said restaurant owner Chafic Abi Aad.

His pancake house is one of a score of inexpensive restaurants to open on the strength of better security in mainly Muslim West Beirut and a desire for fun among Lebanese--regardless of the damage to their inflation-hit wallets.

“Just last summer I used to go around the city without finding a single crowded restaurant among the eight or nine still open at the time,” said Walid Sultani, owner of a new restaurant in the chic Verdun area of West Beirut.

“Now with about 20 new restaurants opening in the area over the past three months, you can’t find an empty seat on a Saturday night.”

Incomes in Lebanon, where 15 years of civil war destroyed much of the economy, have been hit by soaring inflation, which bankers estimate at 150% in the last six weeks.

The Lebanese pound has taken a severe battering. Before the war began in 1975, the dollar was worth 2.5 Lebanese pounds. Now it is worth about 900 and the gap is widening.

But many residents say they are so tired of war that the expense of eating out is secondary.

“After spending so many months in the shelters, I am not going to stay at home now. I will go out no matter what the prices are,” said Karim Marrouche, a political science student at Beirut University College.

“Lebanese don’t carry a calculator with them all the time and count how much they are left with at the end of the month. . . . They just want to have fun,” said Abu Ghazale, owner of a pizza house in West Beirut’s Makhoul Street.

“If prices keep increasing, people will cut on saving and other expenses to go out--especially for food.”

Beirut was famous for its varied cuisine and night life until the war emptied the restaurants, nightclubs and hotels, which had been frequented by tens of thousands of tourists a year.

Lebanon’s lifestyle crumbled and West Beirut, the main attraction, became a haven for assassins, kidnapers and gunmen who looted its tourist area and for three years transformed it into a battleground.

Fear kept people indoors and by night West Beirut was a ghost town.

Security has improved since a cease-fire in September, 1989, ended six months of savage artillery duels across the city divide between troops of Christian Gen. Michel Aoun and Syrian forces and their local Muslim allies.

“At least we can go out without being afraid a shell will hit us or militiamen will attack us,” said law student Kamal Hattoum.