The corner, once a drug supermarket, is considerably calmer now, and the black shades are gone.

The words seemed to be about the building itself, described by squatters and neighbors as a walk-in drug supermarket.

He already faced Federal charges of turning his nightclubs into drug supermarkets and state charges of tax evasion.

Prosecutors had accused him of turning two clubs into virtual drug supermarkets.

Federal authorities have charged that the club impresario Peter Gatien turned the Limelight, now closed, into a drug supermarket.

A team of Federal marshals seized control of a 26-unit rooming house yesterday, saying that the building had served as a drug supermarket for the last three years.

Mr. Gatien was acquitted by a federal jury on charges that he had turned Limelight and another club, the Tunnel, into drug supermarkets.

City officials called the club a drug supermarket, while club supporters called the Giuliani administration draconian.

"It was like a drug supermarket," he said.

Mr. Gatien is accused of turning two Manhattan clubs into "drug supermarkets."