• Life after reality TV: Rocco DiSpirito will be competing on the next season of Dancing with the Stars. [AP]

There was a time in New York City's history, back in the heady days of "a few years ago," when nightlife queen Amy Sacco's life was a worthy item of gossip. She was at the center of an entire universe of celebrities at their most glittering. Today, she's worth chronicling mostly as the living embodiment of the transience of nightlife fame. And a new profile of her in Page Six Magazine (by former Gawker-er Joshua David Stein) can be seen as a grand requiem for Sacco and her Bungalow 8-driven empire. Nothing lasts forever... Sacco's rise to fame is familiar by now. She's just a Jersey girl who came to New York City, worked in the restaurant business, and made some important friends who eventually bankrolled her first club, Lot 61. She hit her peak with the opening of Bungalow 8 in 2001, which succeeded in turning the once-barren area of West Chelsea into the club capital of New York-to the point of destroying the exclusivity and isolation of the neighborhood that helped attract the top models and A-list celebrities to Sacco's clubs in the first place. But Sacco's more recent history is one of unmistakable decline. She opened a Bungalow 8 in London, which received (and still receives) a tepid reception from the locals. Bette, the restaurant Sacco opened as a "neighborhood joint" near her own Chelsea apartment, closed without warning earlier this summer. She got a slew of nightlife and image consulting jobs that, while lucrative, aren't nearly as glamorous as her former life as an NYC tastemaker. And she says she's simply getting tired of it all:

Be warned, ladies. If you want in on the once-great-now-sorta-fading Hudson Hotel bar scene, you better dye your damn hairs did. An irate (hopefully drunk) tipster wrote us last night (well, this morning) about a ridiculous injustice-worthy of the ACLU and inspirational films and the slow mourn of Barber's "Adagio for Strings"-that befell her at the midtown inn. She was denied entrance to the bar, threatened, and shamed. All because her hair was not flaxen.

• The Times' Diner's Journal weighs in on the Wine Spectator scandal. [Diner's Journal]

Oh my, Michael Phelps, what have we here? I am guessing it was a local purchase? Perhaps from a small boutique in one of those labyrinthine Chinese megamalls that you could never actually find again in the case you discovered their elaborate certification that you were buying a genuine limited-edition Bathing Ape was a forgery? Here is a hint: Bathing Ape doesn't manufacture hoodies with short sleeves! I don't think so anyway. No one should! But also: I know you are down with G-Unit or whatever but you are a vaguely dorky-looking 6'5 white swimmer. The "whimsical self-mocking hip-hop internationalist" aesthetic was not meant for you. Your shorter whimsical less-white friend knows this. Call us when you win some gold medals that look as as cool as Mark Spitz's! [Guest of a Guest] Wholly unrelated: Just Asking: Is Michael Phelps A Douche? [Bestweekever]

Last night, a mob of dangerously dancing hipsters armed with boom boxes and dressed as terrifying pandas marched from Union Square to Williamsburg, where the NYPD met them in force. Apparently, dancing and loud music on a hot August evening can lead to any end of mischief, so our boys and girls in blue twisted arms, threw people down, and destroyed at least one portable stereo.

• The war between between Georgia and Russia is having an impact on the local restaurant biz: Russians are avoiding Café Georgia in Brighton Beach. [NYDN]

• Scott Conant is now "poised to become Molto Mario's heir apparent," or so says the Observer. [NYO]

Nightlife photographer Patrick McMullan has always wanted to be respected. His pictures helped create the reputations of niche characters ranging from hipster party gods the Misshapes to famed socialgay publicist Kristian Laliberte, and McMullan himself sees no reason he shouldn't share the spotlight. Unfortunately for him, he's fundamentally an inflated paparazzo, and not a wealthy one-a pretty significant stumbling block to becoming close friends with real celebrities. What to do, when publishing books has proved fruitless? Start a self-branded magazine, of course! (That comes on your iPhone, for some reason?) McMullan's new "magazine" will be strictly iPhone-only, I guess to keep it out of the hands of the wrong crowd. The "magazine" will be called PMc and feature his own photos, a double shot of self-promotion.

Beatrice Inn impresario Paul Sevigny's long-awaited project to transplant the downtown NYC celebrity party scene to Atlantic City at The Chelsea Hotel has now launched. Nightlife dude Ray LeMoine writes rapturously about the trip down to AC on a weeded-out party bus and the awesome penthouse party. "Las Vegas but with cool people," he says. The "collective nowness" of "Team Beatrice" could make The Chelsea "a new weekend spot for downtown's kids," he adds. Have fun, kids! We'll pass. [Medicine Agency]

• East Village bar and performance space Rififi is shutting its doors. [GS]

• Jeffrey Chodorow's Borough Food and Drink—located in possibly the most cursed space in the city—will close this fall to make way for a "French-influenced American bistro," says Gail Greene. [Grub Street]
  

Nightlife is an ugly business full of pretty people. The rules for 26-year-old clothing designer Matt Levine's new thirteen-table LES bar, the Eldridge, are simple. "Friends and family. That's basically what it is," he told Grub Street. There will be 400 laser-engraved cards distributed to the rights kinds of people, so they can definitely get in. There will be butlers and a "hospitality consultant" and someone to drive you home. It will be closed on weekends. I think we all can imagine what happened next: the comments on the interview have been raging since Monday, and it got even better when somebody claiming to possess one of these very special laser cards decided to step into the fray...

If you're lucky, you arrive at a party at just the right time. Most times, you're either too early and drink nervously and get too sloshed to communicate. Or, worse, you arrive a tad later than the majority, and everyone else is already shit-hammered, and you are left feeling sort of, well, sober. The latter is what happened to me at the Flavorpill launch party for their Le Tourment Vert Absinthe brand drink, the "Orange Fresh." But all was not lost. After a full day of work and with my belly full of tacos, I headed back to Culver City (yes, again!) to the Denizen Design Gallery to drink some absinthe, look at art by Terrell Moore and listen to beats by Jason Eldredge. It's the kind of effortlessly cool thing that Flavorpill usually touts in their weekly letters.The artist: Terrell Moore

Jetsetting nightlife trend update: It's not just Dubai that's the hot new destination for NYC club owners bored with drab Americans. Egypt will soon be an attractive stop for money-burning Eurotrash wastrels as well! Undaunted by the country's Islamic system of law and taboos against homosexuality, intoxication, and women doing things (party!), we hear that the Pink Elephant club moguls are building a club aboard a 26,000-square-foot, $100 million party boat that is scheduled to sail the Nile river this coming New Year's eve. I hope they have all their government payoffs in order.

All the hot NYC club mavens are opening their next nightlife outposts in Dubai. "You’re only a few hours from Europe and Asia,” explains one. The Arctic Circle also fits that criteria. Get there early! [NY Mag]

Sam Nazarian is "a rich kid from Beverly Hills" who spent his 20s becoming a Hollywood club mogul, hangs out with Salma Hayek, bought a house next to Leo DiCaprio, and played himself on an episode of Entourage. Now he's 32, and he's determined to bring his special brand of awesome party magic-which "draws such names as Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan"-to Las Vegas. He's gonna make Ocean's 11 come alive again, baby, yea! And his PR team demands you respect his hustle:

Amy Sacco, the former NYC nightlife queen whose reign on top is now (we believe) pretty much over, still has a bunch of fans at BlackBook magazine. In a new interview-one that describes Sacco in glowing terms that would have been more appropriate three years ago-she talks up her Bungalow 8 club in London. Sure, it had a rough start, and hasn't gotten the greatest reviews, but she points out that "we have a hundred more bathrooms than in New York, so, fabulous!" Ha, [cocaine joke]. But what do Sacco's customers in London have to say in their own reviews?

It took 82 years, but New York City may finally get its groove back: The Daily News reports today that the Bloomberg administration is in talks to repeal the city's cabaret license laws, or at least make the licenses a little less rigid. As it stands now—and as you know full well if you've spent any time out since the beginning of the Giuliani adminstration—a club needs the license to allow dancing on the premises, and it's both hard to obtain a permit and easy to lose it for the smallest infractions. Over the years, a long list of venues have battled the Prohibition-era ban, although they've rarely prevailed in their legal bouts with the city. A brief (and select) history of the cabaret wars after the jump.

The Black PR Society of New York had its summer mixer at the huge rooftop lounge at 230 Fifth in Manhattan on Wednesday night. But apparently the 40-person group hadn't reserved it for a private event or something (although the website says "Reservations are not necessary since we can very comfortably accommodate over 1,000 guests at the same time"). So the club's owner, Steven Greenberg, did what any logical, businesslike man would do when he sees 40 black professionals at his lounge listening to a speech from a prominent national political pundit: "I told them, 'I would like all of you out of here immediately.'"