LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Showgirl Video is closed and will soon be torn down to join the crowd of Las Vegas dispensaries, according to the former owner.
Treasure Brown recalls passing the now shuttered Showgirl Video on her way home from school more than 25 years ago.
"I went to Las Vegas High School when it was actually in the City of Las Vegas on 7th Street,” said Brown.
That daily stroll proved to be life changing.
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“Every day I would pass these 'live nude girls' signs,” she said. “And when I became an 18-year-old, I thought maybe I should be a live nude girl.”
And she was. Brown began her career there in 1992 working with the owner Raymond Pistol who ran the area’s lone peep show establishment until it closed last month. The building will be torn down to make way for a new dispensary, but Brown isn’t clinging to the past.
“I'm not one of those people who says save Las Vegas the way it is," she said. “It’s onward and upward. So, if we are doing marijuana instead of nudie girls, that's fine. It’s even kind of cool.”
And it’s what some dispensary owners see as a lucrative part of Las Vegas' tourism future.
"I definitely see this being a cannabis tourism town,” said Brandon Zimmer of Planet 13. “Hopefully in the next few years we should see this as the new Amsterdam."
And just as Nevada capitalized on the sex industry, Riana Durrett, the executive director of the Nevada Dispensary Association tells 13 Action News the state is taking steps through the creation of a cannabis compliance board to not just lead but revolutionize the marijuana industry.
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"The goal is to be a world class state for cannabis regulation,” said Durrett. “We are already doing pretty great especially compared to other states in the United States."
With $630 million in taxable sales this fiscal year in Nevada, and some industry projections showing that overall the industry could soon rival the NFL in profits. It’s not a surprising move. But while strip clubs already compete with the internet, Treasure doesn’t see buds ever beating out bodies.
“No, “she said. “No. Guys will always want to see live nude girls or topless girls.”
