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Re: I met a club god last night
| quote: | Originally posted by pyro264jb
I'll get to that in a minute. I began my night celabrating a friends birthday in downtown. After cake and a few drinks we decided to venture out and look for a party. I knew that Seb fontaine was at Centro fly but really didnt enjoy his last performance their. Since the people I was with new Thoran and some of the promoters there we got comped. Now its about 3:30 and im thinking to myslef I have to be at a job interview at 8:30. I decide to leave but after meeting a few girls and having some more drinks I changed my mind and chilled in the backroom bar. As of now i am having a decent night but nothing special I am looking around the room and see this older man come in with a beutifull girl who is about 25. I start to chat with her and ask her if that guys her husband..... she tells me that he's her Dad>>>>>>> Peter Gatian I fucking flipped. To my knowledge he was deported a year ago for tax fraud. Well I begged her to intorduce me and she did. He was really friendly actually and totally aproachable. I told them that Ny nightllife died with tunnel/ limelight, and he told me that something big was coming soon. That he would be opening a club in the near furture that would be bigger then exit and located around where tunnel used to be off the west side Highway. After hearing all those bad things about this guy and meeting him I got a total differnt impression.
And on a side note Seb Fontaine ROCKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
lol, his daughter used to date Mark Ronson (resident at Centro) thats why she was there. Peter Gatien was never deported, they are trying to deport him now. read up on it...
While he may have been able to control the velvet rope at venues like Limelight and Tunnel, former club king Peter Gatien may find the US/Canada border to be one door that turns him away.
Despite living in the US for 25 years, and being married to an American, Gatien has never bothered to apply for US citizenship. Now the Immigration and Naturalization Service is considering a bid to deport him to his native Canada. On what basis? According to the INS, Gatien is no longer a high-profile club owner and NYC institution, now he’s merely a non-citizen who was convicted of an aggravated felony.
The charge relates to his 1999 guilty plea to tax evasion charges. Gatien subsequently spent 60 days in jail and repaid almost 2 million dollars in back taxes and fines.
Despite being acquitted by a jury on various drug-related charges based on the infamous Tunnel and Limelight days, the relatively minor tax conviction may be enough to send Gatien permanently packing.
Benjamin Brafman, a lawyer representing Gatien, argues that the tax charge doesn’t count as an aggravated felony, and moreover, his wife and four children, all US citizens, are here in New York.
In similar situation, rapper Slick Rick was the target of INS wrath, stemming from his British citizenship (he has lived in the US since he was 11) and a six-year prison stint for shooting his cousin. Unlike Gatien, Rick was held by the INS, without bail, pending deportation hearings. The hip-hop pioneer has far less chance of staying in this country, as U.S. Federal law states that any non-citizen who serves more than five years in prison must be deported.
Authorities seem especially eager to enforce the letter of the law when it comes to the former nightlife entrepreneur. Neighbors of his clubs had campaigned for years, trying to have his venues shut down, arguing that drunken patrons caused havoc and disturbances. Several incidents of violence at the clubs also did little to endear him to police.
Despite his protestations that he did everything he could to keep his venues drug-free, authorities always suspected him of covertly supporting the at-times thriving drug trade in Limelight and Tunnel.
Eventually the mounting legal bills and a slump in the nightlife economy did what the police and State Liquor Authority couldn’t. Tunnel closed and Limelight was auctioned off in bankruptcy court to a group of investors.
Renamed Estate, the new venue is currently open only on Sunday nights.
But the news is not all grim for the 50-year-old Gatien. After many years of trying to get various projects off the ground, he is working with Spike Lee to develop a television series with a nightclub theme, as well as trying to turn his life experiences into a movie script.
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