With a single raising of an arm, the oncoming traffic in busy Long Street comes to a halt.
This is how martial arts expert Houssain Ait Taleb, a powerful figure in Cape Town’s bouncer industry, crosses the street, epitomising the power and respect he commands when he patrols the city centre at night.
He is so well known in Long Street, he can sit outside one establishment and order drinks from another without raising any eyebrows.
Taleb, better known as Houssain Moroccan, previously headed a group of bouncers under slain businessman Cyril Beeka’s notorious and violent club security regime in the 1990s.
Disgusted with what he was once part of, he says he disentangled himself from the industry about a decade ago and rarely sets foot in the city centre.
But recently this has changed.
Taleb has resurfaced in the bouncer industry and now works for Specialised Protection Services (SPS) – set up after Beeka’s murder in March last year and an amalgamation of two rival companies.
Most week nights and every weekend, he patrols Long Street from the evening to the early hours of the morning, when it transforms from a vibrant business hub to a thriving strip of nightclubs.
Taleb keeps an eye on SPS bouncers and watches out for any illegal activities.
He says he is nothing like the person he was when he worked under Beeka.
“That was the past. That time I go home and I can’t sleep. I didn’t like what I was seeing. Now I go home and sleep,” Taleb says.
He arrived in SA in 1994 as a martial arts fighter and began training South African boxers.
Taleb says he was so good that he was given a work permit so he could continue churning out champion boxers.
He then got involved in club security and worked with Beeka.
In a previous interview with the Cape Times, Taleb said Beeka’s tactic to take over clubs had been to give bouncers lots of alcohol. When they were drunk, Beeka would take them to a specific club where he would send them in to trash the establishment and beat anyone who got in their way.
Beeka would then offer the club owner protection to prevent further attacks.
Some of the bouncers were Moroccan and somehow this term was applied to all bouncers and their associates.
“At that time, everyone was called Moroccan. Even Cyril was called Moroccan,” Taleb says.
Since those days, he has given up drinking alcohol, has embraced religion and focuses on his passion for martial arts.
During an interview in Long Street on Saturday night, while Taleb is on the job, he says there are now seven “Moroccans” involved in the city bouncer scene.
“We are not mafia. We are a brotherhood … We protect each other.”
But Taleb doesn’t want to speak about the past tonight.
Dressed in a neat black suit, white shirt and black tie, he cuts a professional figure as he briskly patrols the street amid clubgoers.
He insists his suit is cheap.
“I love to be poor. I ask God to keep me poor because money is evil.”
A number of clubgoers, club owners and Central City Improvement District officers shout greetings to Taleb as he patrols the street.
He has been instrumental in arresting a number of suspects and usually carries a camera to take photographs of them so he can identify suspects in future.
Taleb has a few secret weapons up his sleave – he can speak a few languages, including Afrikaans, which often throws people off and endears him to them. “Ek kan dit baie goed praat (I can speak it really well),” he says proudly.
Taleb points out suspected drug dealers skulking in the shadows and says criminals often fool tourists, selling them Panado tablets or even small bundles of toilet paper instead of drugs.
He says pickpocketing has become a big problem in Long Street.
As Taleb walks from club to club, he warmly greets bouncers, who smile when they see him.
The bouncers at nearly all the clubs in Long Street are dressed in black uniforms with yellow ties – the signature look of SPS security.
Taleb says he decided to work with SPS because he wanted to help make Long Street become a safer place.
“One message I want to send to any drug dealer, gangster or pickpocket is that you’re not welcome here.
“I’ll be here all the time. I’m not scared. I’ll take a bullet if I have to.” - Cape Times