Drugs furore at Groucho Club over ‘bankers’ cocaine binges'
THE Groucho is the fashionable private club where founding member Stephen Fry banned mobile phones and shark pickler Damien Hirst put his £20,000 Turner Prize winnings behind the bar.
But now the Soho joint is the scene of a growing revolt against its private equity owners, who stand accused of turning it into a corporate watering hole crammed full of bankers snorting cocaine while braying into their smartphones.
I can disclose that 14 veteran members have written a furious letter to the managing director, Matthew Hobbs, making a long list of complaints, including about the
‘open’ drug use that allegedly takes place on the premises.
‘The club has lost its unique feel,’ claim the members in the letter. ‘There is a sense that it is now yet another downmarket club when it used to be the best in London, if not the world.’
A majority stake in the Groucho was bought for around £40 million by Caffe Nero owner Alcuin Capital last summer. Until 2006, it was owned by chocolate heir Joel Cadbury, who sold it to City firm Graphite Capital.
‘Perhaps as a result of managerial changes within the club (and the resulting disarray), there is now an increase in open drug-taking in the toilets — such as using the sink areas in full view — which some members are very angry about,’ the letter claims.
The Groucho, founded in 1985, used to be frequented by writers such as Julie Burchill and Toby Young, who once had a tryst with a Princess Diana lookalike in the club’s lavatories.
Guests at parties there included Queen singer Freddie Mercury and American actress Liza Minnelli.
Now it’s being flooded with City types, the members claim.
‘The club appears to be oversubscribed, and new members don’t seem to necessarily come from the traditional media/arts background,’ they say.
‘When the club membership becomes over-subscribed or too corporate, it smacks of the club needing money.’
Hobbs will say only: ‘We have a zero-tolerance attitude on drugtaking, and I am not aware of anyone flouting the club’s rules.’