Gatien still loves reminiscing about the wild times people had in his clubs. He cracks up at the mention of Alig’s notorious flash parties, where he’d recruit 600 club kids and drag queens to storm a Burger King with a ghetto blaster and gyrate on tables in front of the bewildered staff. Gatien still corresponds with Alig three or four times a year. “I can’t help it,” he says, grinning. “I like the guy. Obviously what he did was horrific, but the drugs had a lot to do with it. Michael is a gay, 130-pound, nonviolent guy. I mean, if someone walked into the room and said, ‘Guess who committed a murder last night?’ nobody would say, ‘It’s gotta be Michael Alig.’ But he got strung out.”

Most people, especially New Yorkers, assume Gatien’s not in Manhattan because he can’t be. But he says he wouldn’t come back even if the city welcomed him with open arms. “I loved New York. I loved the people,” he says. “But in New York, there’s been such heat by local government that they almost have to operate like a prison, where everyone has to be body-searched. The fun’s been taken out of it. I quite frankly—I shouldn’t go there—but I think Giuliani single-handedly destroyed nightlife in New York.” He claims to be happy right where he is. “In balance, do I prefer being in Toronto? The answer is yes. I really believe that Toronto is the right time, right place, right energy, right everything.”

His lawyer, Ben Brafman, thinks maybe Gatien’s feelings are a little hurt. “I think Peter is very angry about how the United States of America treated him. They set up to destroy him, and at the end of the day, they succeeded, at least for a time.” Still, if Circa’s a hit, then who knows? Brafman says, “For several years since the federal trial, we have been working without fee to be able to get Peter back into the United States. Because I’m betting on him being on top of the club world both in New York and in Canada in a very short time. Because he’s a genius.” Gatien’s attorneys even found a loophole in immigration law that says a Native American cannot be deported. “And Peter is legally Native American Indian,” Brafman says. (Both of Gatien’s grandmothers were Native American.) “Having been certified as such, he could now come back to the United States whenever he chooses.” Gatien shrugs off any talk of the future; he’s not the kind to have a five-year plan, he says. But he now carries a card in his wallet that certifies him as a member of the Mohawk tribe.