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Spearmint Rhino

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Exterior of the Birmingham Extreme Spearmint Rhino Gentlemen's Club in Birmingham England.
Spearmint Rhino Birmingham, England.

Spearmint Rhino is the world's largest chain of upscale gentlemen's clubs which operates venues throughout the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Central Europe, Russia and Australia.[1] The company was founded by American Businessman John L. Gray. In the 1980s as part of Mr. Gray's holdings, he controlled a very popular chain of nightclub/disco style restaurants known as Peppermint Elephant Restaurants. Mr. Gray in the mid-1980s elected to open another restaurant (again a disco style club) in close approximation to an existing Peppermint Elephant Restaurant thus needing a separate name - he called the new venue Spearmint Rhino. This first Spearmint Rhino was located in Upland, California. The company thereafter elected, in a move to compete with the "Hooters" chain, to convert the Upland Spearmint Rhino waitress attire to a "bikini style" uniform.[citation needed] The County of San Bernardino government asserted that the uniforms (while very conservative and non-revealing) nevertheless violated the County of San Bernardino applicable ordinance. The Company disagreed and filed a federal court action seeking invalidation of the then existing government ordinance on various theories resulting in the Company successfully invalidating under constitutional challenge the applicable law. The result permitted a most aggressive uniforming of waitresses and indeed an adult business style operation. The company elected to venture into that arena and rapidly became the most successful of its kind in the world.[citation needed]

Contrary to conjecture and rumor, the name Spearmint Rhino is not code name or reference to anything whatsoever - but rather the Company was simply endeavoring to implement a noticeable, memorable and catchy name.[2]

The Main Stage at the Spearmint Rhino Gentlemen's Club in Birmingham England.
The main stage, Birmingham.

The chain, with each club location/venue being independently owned, operated and licensed.

In Britain, the chain has club venues in London and Birmingham, as well as clubs in Norwich, Bournemouth, Sheffield, Slough (Berkshire), Brighton and Heathrow (Colnbrook). The chain's UK flagship London club was the first in the UK to offer fully nude dancing, which prompted a "dirty war" with its then main rival Stringfellow's, which at the time was topless-only. Peter Stringfellow sent private detectives armed with hidden cameras to videotape the going-ons at Rhino (American style lap dancing was witnessed). This lead UK government to challenge the licensing of Spearmint Rhino and caused a national scandal within the UK press. Spearmint Rhino and Mr. Gray became household words throughout the UK with Mr. Gray becoming a UK celebrity with numerous entertainment related television shows and an endless following by UK press. The Company has long been represented by the well known UK public relations specialist Max Clifford. Spearmint Rhino, again making case law, won its legal challenges in the UK establishing leading law within the industry, UK licensing law standards and permitting a host of want-to-be Spearmint Rhino copy cat clubs across the UK landscape. Shortly afterwards, Stringfellow's single venue went fully-nude but has never been able to keep up anywhere near the charge of the giant Spearmint Rhino chain.

The company's London venue, on Tottenham Court Road, is considered to be their flagship club in the UK. The company Worldwide headquarters is located in Norco, California. The company further maintains offices in London and Melbourne, Australia.

In April 2006, the Slough club made the UK headlines yet again when Prince Harry visited the club for a party celebrating the end of his training at Sandhurst.[3] The Slough club was also featured in an episode of BBC Top Gear.

Notes

  1. ^ The Observer Business, Media & Cash section of The Observer on Sunday 3 February 2002, p12.
  2. ^ Media:p12 of the Observer Business, Media & Cash section of the Observer on Sunday 3 February 2002. It was published on guardian.co.uk at 00.22 GMT on Sunday 3 February 2002.
  3. ^ Dirty Harry's lap dance | The Sun |HomePage|News

References

p12 of the Observer Business, Media & Cash section of the Observer on Sunday 3 February 2002. It was published on guardian.co.uk at 00.22 GMT on Sunday 3 February 2002.

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