Ever since ARO.space took over Moe's Mo' Rockin' Cafe at the corner of 10th Avenue and Pike Street, the club has floundered. Three consecutive owners couldn't make ARO.space thrive, and the Capitol Hill community has watched as the nightclub lingers on in a sort of limbo, a monument to bad luck. The space was finally bought in January 2001 by Denver, Colorado, club maven and recent Seattle transplant Dennis Gibson, who renamed the space Paradise Garage. A gay club, Paradise Garage is slated to open this week, but Gibson isn't saying which night.

In a recent article in the Seattle Gay Standard, Gibson said, "I came out of retirement to do the club because this space [has] magic.... I think it's been the most exciting construction process I've ever been through."

Unfortunately, it's been a harrowing construction process for one of the contractors, and now--once again--a familiar, dark cloud is shadowing the corner of 10th and Pike. Besides missing a couple of opening-date deadlines, Paradise Garage is facing a possible lawsuit from contract painter Chris Phillips.

Phillips, 35, owns his own small painting company, Chris Phillips Painting. Solidly punk rock and a club scene supporter, Phillips has been in several bands: Dumas, 3HD, and Pawn Shop. Here's his story: On March 17, Gibson hired Phillips to paint the inside of the club space. In a makeshift, handwritten contract, the two men agreed to a $7,000 payment, and Gibson agreed to provide two workers who would help prep the space. Shortly after the initial agreement, Phillips says, the work was extended and the payment was upped to $8,500.

According to Phillips, the two men agreed on a payment schedule of three installments. On the first Monday, as agreed, Gibson gave Phillips a check for $2,500, which cleared. On the second Monday, however, Gibson gave Phillips another check for $2,500, which bounced.

"Once you bounce a check, your handshake and your word are no longer valid," Phillips says. When Phillips contacted Gibson about the bad check, Gibson apologized and blamed his bank. "He told me he had $60,000 in the bank," Phillips says. By the time Phillips received notice from his bank that the check had bounced, it was already the next Monday, and Gibson--according to the payment schedule--now owed Phillips a third check. Gibson paid him $2,500 in cash to make up for the rubber check, but he didn't come through with the final payment of $3,500.

Meanwhile, the two prep workers whom Gibson pledged to provide never materialized. Almost every day, Phillips would come to the site to find that the walls and rooms were not ready for him. "The floors weren't swept," he said of the space. "There were holes in the walls. Vents hadn't been taped off. I'm a painter. That's all I do, mask and paint. It seemed as though Dennis didn't know what he was doing."

Gibson denies the allegations. "There is a valid contract in effect which addresses all of these issues. Currently, that contract is headed for litigation," Gibson told The Stranger. "Mr. Phillips has substantially broken his contract. He walked off the job without notice two hours prior to final fire inspection." When pressed about the issue of the bad check, Gibson explained that "Chris presented the check prior to the agreed-upon date. [Chris] apologized and I immediately paid him in cash."

Indeed, Phillips did walk off the job. "I let him take me and take me and take me," Phillips says. "He had me in a circle. I could walk away and take a loss or I could keep the job--hoping he was going to pay me like he said. [Painting the club] was going to be a feather in my cap. I still want people to know that I painted it and it looks beautiful because of me."