Sleaze quota the question as strip club goes for bust

The red-light past of Brisbane’s ­Fortitude Valley is staging a comeback, with two new clubs planned for a block that already has four.

Jasmine Robson, managing director of the Grosvenor topless bar and strip club in Brisbane. Picture: Glenn Hunt

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

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

The seedy underbelly that gave the suburb its cool cachet never disappeared, but the arrival of new venues bucks the downward trend in Sydney’s Kings Cross and raises the question of how much sleaze is too much.

Next weekend the Grosvenor topless bar and strip club will close its current site in the city’s CBD, with plans to move just under 2km to a cavernous 1350sq m vacant space in the Valley’s old Chopstix arcade near the corner of Brunswick and Wickham streets.

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.”

She had previously discussed her plans with the Gold Coast Bulletin, which reported in November that “by next year Ms Robson hopes to have relocated Brisbane’s Grosvenor to make it the biggest adult entertainment venue in the country”.

It had not been known where the club would reopen until The Australian learned it was headed to the Valley, sparking concerns an extensive adult entertainment precinct was being created by stealth.

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

In July, the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation also ­quietly approved an adult entertainment permit for another new venue, Club 247, for the same block. Two more strip clubs — Love and Rockets and the ­recently opened OMFGs Adult Lounge — are at the other end of the Brunswick Street mall.

An objection to the Grosvenor’s relocation has been lodged with council by Fletcher Potanin, who owns the building where the Candy Club is a tenant.

He said the Valley had the highest concentration of adult ­entertainment venues in the country, with Kings Cross having its lights dimmed by lockout laws and gentrification.

More clubs would add to the image problem of the Valley’s “strip club strip”, deterring conventional businesses from opening at a time when one in three retail shops were vacant in that area, he said.

“Here we are 30 years after Fitzgerald and we’re now creating a red-light district,” Mr Potanin said. “It’s condemning that corner of the Valley to deterioration and low vacancy for the next 30 years.”

The separate approval of Club 247 is also being challenged in an ongoing appeal in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal by Mathew Bellward, rival operator of the Candy Club, Eye Candy and OMFGs.

The appeal raises probity concerns and claims an oversupply of venues will turn the area into a red-light district, The Australian understands. Mr Bellward ­declined to comment.

Ms Robson said the plan was for only part of the new venue to be for adult entertainment and that it was being targeted by ­nervous competitors. She didn’t ­accept more strip clubs would drag down the Valley’s tone.

“The Valley has a lot of empty, dilapidated, falling-down buildings. It’s an eyesore, frankly,” she said. “We’re wanting to bring life back.”