Peter Gatien (born August 14, 1952) is a Canadian club owner and party promoter. He is best known as the former owner of several prominent

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

nightclub A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music. Nightclubs gener ...

s, including Club USA,

The Limelight The Limelight was the name of a chain of nightclubs owned and operated by Peter Gatien. It had locations in New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, London and Hallandale. Context During the 1980s, club culture had died down because of the AIDS e ...

Palladium Palladium is a chemical element with the symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself na ...

, and

Tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

Life and career

Gatien was born in

Cornwall, Ontario Cornwall is a city in Eastern Ontario, Canada, situated where the provinces of Ontario and Quebec and the state of New York converge. It is the seat of the United Counties of Stormont, Dundas, and Glengarry and is Ontario's easternmost city ...

, the third of five brothers. His first business venture was a jeans store in his home town, which he opened with a $13,000 settlement after he lost an eye in a hockey accident. After that, he turned a former

country western Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, old- ...

bar into a

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

club called Aardvark and booked the band Rush to perform. In 1976, he read about a bankrupt nightclub in

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

known as Rumbottoms; the space became the first incarnation of

. Limelight

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

followed. The longest period of time in which The Limelight remained closed was from 1996 to 1998. It reopened from 1998 until Gatien sold it in 2001, to a real estate developer. Gatien produced the film '' A Bronx Tale'' (1993), starring Robert De Niro, after having produced it as a one-man play starring Chazz Palminteri. A 1996 federal investigation attempted but failed to link Gatien to the sales of party drugs, especially ecstasy, in his clubs, but his acquittal in 1998 left him with huge legal fees. In addition, he was later arrested on tax evasion charges after a series of club raids; he was acquitted of most of the charges. He pleaded guilty to

tax evasion Tax evasion is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the tax ...

in 1999, for which he was sentenced to a fine of $1.6 million and a 60-day

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, corre ...

sentence, along with 5 years' probation. In 2003, he was

deported Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. The term ''expulsion'' is often used as a synonym for deportation, though expulsion is more often used in the context of international law, while deportation ...

to his native Canada, under the

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, a ...

laws which order the removal of any alien (non-citizen) convicted of a

felony A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law (from the French medieval word "félonie") to describe an offense that resu ...

. However, because of his partial Indigenous ancestry, Gatien has since been able to visit the United States again. Gatien relocated to

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

, where he opened a entertainment venue, Circa. By 2009, he was no longer involved with Circa and has been out of the nightclub business since that time. Circa was forced into bankruptcy and closed in March 2010.

In popular culture

Books

*Gatien and the histories of his clubs are discussed at length in the book ''The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco, and the Culture of the Night'', by Anthony Haden-Guest. Haden-Guest's book chronicles the history of New York nightlife and all the significant people and events that impacted its evolution from Studio 54 through to the days of Club USA, The Limelight, Palladium, and Tunnel. *Gatien is a prominent character in two books about

scandals A scandal can be broadly defined as the strong social reactions of outrage, anger, or surprise, when accusations or rumours circulate or appear for some reason, regarding a person or persons who are perceived to have transgressed in some way. Th ...

involving former club promoter

Michael Alig Michael Alig (April 29, 1966 – December 24, 2020) was an American club promoter and convicted felon. He was one of the ringleaders of the Club Kids, a group of young New York City clubgoers who became a cultural phenomenon in the late 1980s a ...

, including: ** ''

Disco Bloodbath ''Disco Bloodbath: A Fabulous but True Tale of Murder in Clubland'' is a 1999 memoir written by James St. James about his life as a Manhattan celebutante and club kid. The book specifically chronicles his friend Michael Alig's rise to fame, and ...

: A Fabulous but True Tale of Murder in Clubland'' (1999) by James St. James **''Clubland Confidential: The Fabulous Rise and Murderous Fall of Club Culture'' (2003) by Frank Owen

Films

*St. James' book, ''Disco Bloodbath'', was later made into two films: **'' Party Monster: The Shockumentary'' (1998), a documentary ** '' Party Monster'' (2003), a feature film starring

Macaulay Culkin Macaulay Macaulay Culkin Culkin (born Macaulay Carson Culkin; ) is an American actor. Often regarded as one of the most successful child actors of the 1990s, he was placed 2nd on VH1's list of the "100 Greatest Kid-Stars". Culkin rose to prom ...

as Michael Alig, and Seth Green as James St. James, that chronicles the events leading up to the murder of

Angel Melendez Andre "Angel" Melendez (May 1, 1971 – March 17, 1996) was a member of the Club Kids and purported drug dealer who lived and worked in New York City. He was killed by Michael Alig and Robert "Freeze" Riggs on March 17, 1996. His life and death ha ...

, committed by

and his roommate, Robert D. "Freeze" Riggs. Gatien is played by

Dylan McDermott Dylan McDermott (born Mark Anthony McDermott; October 26, 1961) is an American actor. He is known for his role as lawyer and law firm head Bobby Donnell on the legal drama series ''The Practice'', which earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best ...

. *Gatien's daughter, Jen Gatien, produced the documentary '' Limelight'' (2011), about New York City night life in the 1990s, and the rise and fall of her father's club empire.

Toys

*In 2007, Gatien was made into a Dunny, a type of vinyl designer toy.

Music

*Gatien is mentioned in the song, "The Fun Lovin' Criminal" by The Fun Lovin' Criminals: "I am always optimistic about human relations, I got more friends than my man Peter Gatien" *He is also mentioned in the song, "Foundation" by Jay-Z, who raps: "Me and my operation, running New York nightscene, with one eye closed, like Peter Gatien" *He is also mentioned in the song, "Dynasty" by

The Diplomats The Diplomats (also known as Dipset) is an American hip hop collective formed in 1997 by childhood friends Cam'ron and Jim Jones in Harlem, New York. The group was originally composed of Cam'ron, Jim Jones and Freekey Zekey, all of whom gre ...

: "Meet

Jimmy Iovine James Iovine ( ; ; born March 11, 1953) is an American entrepreneur, record executive, and media proprietor best known as the co-founder of Interscope Records. In 2006, Iovine and rapper-producer Dr. Dre founded Beats Electronics, which produces ...

, give me my cream Shapiro, Peter Gatien, relation Spot a club in L.A just to touch it up"