Today, before I came here, in Southern California I took my daughter to her first day of high school. Well, I am 55 years old, and was a dad at 40. So Spearmint Rhino has grown largely in the last 10-15 years by the acquisition of smaller clubs that were failing, but had the all important entitlements.Īt the outset I told you that I have been gone for awhile.
Today if I challenged an ordinance in a zoning context and found that it was unconstitutional, the retaliatory response that wasn’t apparent 20 years ago will be that after we are victorious in fighting the zoning, the city would enact a conduct regulation that is, six foot or ten foot distance requirements, clear line of sight, close at midnight, etc. Twenty years ago, what John Weston and I would do in an ordinance couldn’t be done today. When we hear about all the negativity, which I’ll touch upon, it is all manageable. The competition to many of us aren’t necessarily as astute of an operator as they would be if they were a non-adult business industry.
The bar of the moral majority that keeps many of the society out of this business and the toughness of zoning actually works in our favor as well, because the competition is not there. Indeed, I don’t know of much of anything that makes as much per square foot as an adult club, other than maybe gambling. Most every location that we can think of as an adult business makes more money than its contiguous neighbor that is a dry cleaner or a convenience store. It’s a simple gauntlet that, I think you will find from my talk today, actually serves a purpose for us. The future is bright, the problems are manageable. Let me start off by saying that this is a great industry, it truly is. John Gray has kept a low profile in the industry in recent years, but at EXPO 2012 he presented his unique views on where the industry has been over the past 20 years and where he sees it heading in the next 20. Over the years, Spearmint Rhino clubs have taken home a number of ED’s Awards, including the Overall Gentlemen’s Club of the Year award for their Las Vegas location, which has a reputation as being one of the most popular adult nightclubs in the world. While opening 24 clubs in 12 years was certainly an accomplishment worthy of recognition, what truly separated Spearmint Rhino from other club chains was that half of those clubs were located overseas in England, Russia, and Australia, establishing John Gray and Spearmint Rhino as a true worldwide presence. Over the next dozen years he turned Spearmint Rhino into a full-fledged adult nightclub chain, introducing 24 new club openings over that period. Spearmint Rhino’s John Gray - John Gray took the adult nightclub industry by storm when he arrived in 1991, opening the first Spearmint Rhino Club in Upland, CA.
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