GLASGOW, SCOTLAND — The owner of Spearmint Rhino gentlemen’s clubs also owns pornographic websites on which some of the dancers engage in activities they’re not allowed to pursue in the cabarets.For some reason, that surprised the Scots when the Sunday Mail newspaper revealed the connection between American John Gray’s international strip-club empire and his World Wide Web holdings. Now the government and the local citizenry are up in arms and demanding Gray’s newest club in Glasgow be closed.
The club is Gray’s seventh in the U.K. It is expected to open later this month.
In most places, the clubs enforce a strict “no-touching” policy between patrons and dancers. Not so on the websites, where explicit images and videos leave nothing to the imagination.
“I’ve been suspicious of the club’s insistence that it offers nothing but squeaky-clean, harmless fun, but the Sunday Mail has uncovered a part of the business that clearly goes far further than that,” Member of the Scottish Parliament Sandra White told the newspaper. “I hope this leads to the club’s closure in Glasgow.”
Gray probably brought some of the trouble on himself. When he began opening clubs in the UK, he told the British press, “We want to be perceived as an extremely clean, upscale business… a fantasy business that has absolutely nothing to do with sex but rather theatrical performances.”
Then, in 2003, Spearmint Rhino’s flagship London establishment nearly was closed after dancers were arrested for selling sex and drugs when they weren’t performing theatrically.
Gray’s battles with the city of Glasgow began in 2002, when he was refused a license to open a Spearmint Rhino there. Undeterred, he simply bought an existing club and renamed it, thereby sidestepping licensing restrictions.
Earlier this month, the city council banned the club from using the American euphemism “gentlemen’s club” in advertisements, because “true gentlemen would be ashamed to visit it,” according to the Sunday Mail.
