Controversial Brisbane strip club The Grosvenor shuts its doors for good

A controversial Brisbane strip club has taken aim at Covid restrictions and the cost of living crisis as it announced it was closing down.

Jasmine Robson has revealed The Grosvenor is shutting down. Picture: Liam Kidston.

A controversial Fortitude Valley strip club that went to court to remain open has shut its doors after eight years in business, with the owners blaming “circumstances beyond our control”.

The Grosvenor’s owners, Gold Coast-based adult industry entrepreneur Jasmine Robson and business partner Rick Williamson, announced on social media that the club had entertained its last patrons.

TIMELINE OF EVENTS BELOW >>>

Jasmine Robson outside The Grosvenor. Picture: Supplied

The venue originally operated in George St in the CBD but moved to The Valley in 2020, despite fierce objections from a rival operator as well as nearby residents who claimed it would turn the area into a “red light district” and force down real estate values.

Locals appealed the decision to grant the Wickham St establishment an adult entertainment permit, but the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal upheld its right to continue trading in a judgment handed down in February this year.

The QCAT ruled that the Grosvenor was renovating a “derelict” building and its operation would have a “positive impact on the character of the locality and amenity of the community”

Ms Robson said at the time she was “delighted” with the “proper and correct decision” had been made after a long legal battle which threatened to destroy her “female-owned small business”.

But in a social media post last week, Ms Robson and Mr Williamson announced “with great sadness” the venue’s closure.

“This decision was not made lightly and is due to circumstances beyond our control,” they said, citing factors including Covid-19 which “left us the hardest hit out of all industries”.

“Being the first industry to be closed down and the last to open (with brothels being able to trade before we could) and having the strictest restrictions (masks, capacity limits etc.) for the most extended times,” Ms Robson and Mr Williamson said.

“This was compounded by the fact we were closed in 2019, moving from The City to The Valley, spending all of our cash reserves to deliver a world-class venue and therefore had ZERO relief payments from the (Federal) Government as we were technically not ‘down more than 30% on the previous years’ trade’ as we didn’t ‘trade’ the year prior.

“In addition to this, NO concessions were given in rent, it was just put into arrears, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent accrued.”

Jasmine Robson, managing director of The Grosvenor. Picture: Glenn Hunt

The partners said the business had also been hit hard by the tough economy including rising energy costs, a “massive increase” in alcohol prices and a quadrupling in insurance premiums along with high taxes.

“(We) hear the same story from multiple business people every day and am fully aware that we are not the first, nor the last, that will collapse under pressure soon,” they said.

“We fear the rise in suicides when people decide they want off the ‘caged rat wheel’ of simply working to pay bills and taxes, with no enjoyment left in life.

“Very very sad times indeed.

“To all of our customers over the years, I trust you will keep our memory alive in your hearts and cherish the good times.

To all of our staff and subcontractors, past and present, we hope that through your tenure with us, you learnt, grew and succeeded in achieving your goals.

“(We) know MANY of you have gone on to build wildly successful businesses of your own and become nurses, doctors, lawyers, psychologists, cosmetic tattoo artists, eyelash technicians, naturopaths and real estate agents, to name a few.

“I hope you will always look back on your time at The Grosvenor with fond memories knowing that you were always treated with love and respect and felt part of the family we created.

“To all of our vendors, thanks for playing your part in keeping the wheels turning for so long.

“To all of our security guards, thank you for always putting your safety second to that of everyone within the venue to ensure everyone had a safe night.

“With deep sorrow, we bid you goodbye. Sorry, we did our best.”

HISTORY OF THE GROSVENOR

January 2019

A month before the Brisbane strip club packed up the poles and shut up shop, owner of The Grosvenor Topless Bar and Strip Club Jasmine Robson admitted to her stress searching for a new home.

“We had some people so upset about it,” she said.

“While we weren’t wanting to move at all, we found the perfect location and the perfect venue that we can make bigger and better than the current one.

“We’ll be closing down completely for a few months while we move everything from the current venue to the new venue and finalise the renovations.”

The Grosvenor left behind a legacy, Ms Robson said.

“Some people have been coming here since the day it opened,” Ms Robson said.

“We have about 100 staff and all of our dancers will be displaced for an unknown period of time. That’s been out of our control, but we’re confident that they will all come back as soon as we reopen the new venue.”

Ms Robson said the business had a reputation for treating its staff and dancers very well, and she was confident they would return to work in the new and much larger single-level club.

February 2019

The red-light past of Brisbane’s ­Fortitude Valley was staging a comeback, with the “biggest adult ­entertainment venue in the country” joining another new strip club in a block that already had four.

Thirty years after illegal casinos and prostitution made it the epicentre of the Fitzgerald inquiry into corruption, the Valley reinvented itself as Queensland’s premier nightclub district and ­attracted huge financial investments in new apartment towers, bars and restaurants.

The Grosvenor topless bar and strip club closed its site in the city’s CBD, moving just under 2km to the corner of Brunswick and Wickham streets.

Grosvenor Strip Club co-owner Jasmine Robson. Picture David Clark

Managing director Jasmine Robson confirmed her ambitions for the venue, saying she wanted it to be “the biggest and the best”, while dismissing concerns the Valley had too many strip clubs.

“It’s going to be sensational — something of the likes the whole country hasn’t seen,” she said.

“That’s going to come from the multiple aspects of the business. If you’re not interested in adult ­entertainment venues, then just don’t go to it.”

Four strip clubs — Eye Candy, Candy Club, Tony’s on Brunswick and Cabaret Club — and two adult shops already traded from the block.

January 2020

A rival Fortitude Valley strip club launched a scathing attack as it attempted to block it from opening a super-sized venue.

In a 69-page objection to the state’s strip-club probity investigator, Candy Club’s Fletcher Potanin tried to stymie rival Jasmine Robson’s company The Grosvenor The Valley Pty Ltd (GTV) from obtaining a club permit.

Mr Potanin encouraged investigators to probe if the Grosvenor club that Ms Robson, from Parkwood on the Gold Coast, ran in Brisbane’s CBD until February had committed “large scale wage theft”, “sham contracting”, and if large amounts of cash had been siphoned off from the club.

Mr Potanin also alleged there was a risk GTV may “transgress into prostitution” because he believed Ms Robson was involved with party-strippers website PeachE.

February 2023

The Fortitude Valley strip club and topless bar won the right to continue operating after a tribunal dismissed concerns its presence would tip the area into a “red light district” and force down real estate prices.

Grosvenor The Valley owner Jasmine Robson welcomed the decision, saying it had been an attempt by rivals to bully her out of business.

The Liquor and Gaming Commissioner granted the venue an Adult Entertainment Permit (AEP) in January 2020, but objections prompted a review by the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal in September 2022.

End of an era for Brisbane strip club The Grosvenor.

Some had complained that the introduction of another strip club into the party precinct would disturb those who lived, worked or travelled through the area and that it could adversely affect the neighbourhood’s character.

The opponents also asserted that opening another adult entertainment venue in the area could force down real estate prices and turn the Valley into a “red light district”. But in a judgment QCAT member Vass Poteri confirmed the Commissioner’s original decision.