Two Adelaide strip clubs granted permission to relaunch nude entertainment, including pole dancing, nearly a year since COVID shutdown

Adult entertainment is making a comeback in the city for the first time since COVID-19 upending Adelaide’s night life industry.

Two Adelaide strip clubs have been given approval to relaunch nude entertainment for the first time in nearly a year since the pandemic.

Two Adelaide strip clubs have been given official permission to relaunch nude entertainment such as pole dancing for the first time in almost a year since coronavirus restrictions banned operations.

SA Health has approved special COVID-19 safety plans for Pirie Street-based Pole Position, in the CBD’s east, and The Palace on Hindley Street.

The management plans, signed off this week after extensive negotiations between club bosses and senior health officials, allow for “COVID-safe” pole and table dancing, restricted private shows as well as nude activities.

Patrons must keep 1.5m physical distance, meaning lap dances or touching dancers with tips remains banned.

Clubs must also keep contact tracing records, use COVID marshals, undertake deep cleaning and adequate hygiene as well as keeping “strict limits on numbers and activities in private rooms”, an SA Health spokeswoman said.

Under state emergency laws, “entertainment of a sexually explicit nature” requires such plan approvals along with “high risk” dancing and drinking alcohol or events with more than 1000 people.

Other strip clubs can operate as licensed venues but with topless bar staff and dancers remaining partially clothed as full nude entertainment is banned without SA Health permission.

Pole Position’s owner for the past 16 years, Tony Prideaux, 52, said his club, formerly known as Checkmates, could operate at full capacity of 100 people at a time due to his venue’s layout.

“It is a breath of fresh air as we can get back closer to what we were previously doing,” he said.

“The punters have accepted that is what it is going to be. It is good to know what is going to be normal for some time.”

A Palace spokeswoman declined to comment.

Last year the Sunday Mail revealed how adult entertainers were struggling to make ends meet, prompting a “free willy” campaign to have restrictions softened.

Chief public health officer, Nicola Spurrier this week told an Adelaide University lecture how she was “very pleased” with the approvals.

“We deal with all sorts of situations,” she said.

Since July last year, SA Health’s management committee has approved 143 plans.

These include 69 major events, 53 sports fixtures, six nightclubs, as well as a handful of weddings, functions or “non-club” dancing and drinking alcohol in locations such as cultural societies.