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Letter to the editor

Empire keeper

The co-owner of a controversial nightclub fights to maintain good relations with Ybor City neighbors and the police.

By ALEXANDRA ZAYAS
Published July 6, 2007

Club goers dance to hip-hop rhythms at Empire nighclub in Ybor City.
	[Danny Ghitis | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT Ken Grossman, co-owner of Empire nightclub in Ybor City, monitors activity at his club. Tampa police Officer Sal Mazza waits for Fuel, the subject of repeat noise violations, to close. Grossman says Empire is different.

YBOR CITY - It's Thirsty Thursday at Empire, and the dance floor is a bouncing sea of all-you-can-drink cups, gold grills, glam sunglasses and booty shorts. Clubgoers stomp so hard, the ground shakes. Their summer anthem is on. They yell the Shop Boyz hip-hop hit at the top of their lungs: Party like a rock / Party like a rock star ... In VIP, high-rollers sip Hennessy. On stage, an emcee throws dollar bills. Outside, a bouncer pats down for guns. And behind a private door, a 39-year-old man sits in a plush brown leather chair watching it all on a split-screen security monitor in black and white. He's a South Tampa father of two who keeps an air freshener on his desk and his kid's finger painting on his wall. And he's the co-owner of one of Ybor's most controversial clubs, the general manager who will get blamed if someone else is shot. Meet Ken Grossman.

An early morning in May, a man was fatally shot a block away from Empire minutes after being kicked out of the club for fighting with the alleged gunman.

Grossman got the first call from the press that afternoon.

"Are you seriously asking me if I let guns into my club?" he asked a Times reporter.

In the month that followed, he would defend his club's safety protocol to cops, to neighbors, to TV news watchers.

Reporters would rehash the 2002 murder of bouncer Philip Harris, shot by a club patron who refused to take off his hat.

A Tampa Police commander would stand before the City Council detailing crimes surrounding Empire and its neighbor on the 1900 block of E Seventh Avenue, Club Fuel.

A sign would emerge across the street warning Ybor visitors about Empire.

Grossman would take it personally.

"Anything that's said bad about Empire, it's bad about me, " he said. "Empire and Ken Grossman is the same person."

So began the nonstop public relations campaign.

Grossman had his bouncers eat at Acropolis, across the street, to apologize for a decline in restaurant business linked to bad Ybor press.

He stood before a room full of neighbors at the Historic Ybor Neighborhood Civic Association and gave them his cell phone number, a goodwill gesture.

Police came to understand that Grossman and co-owner Joel Brewer were cooperative, and neighborhood association president Tony LaColla said, "he's doing as much as he can."

Then, last Saturday, between 15 and 18 Tampa police officers marched into his club and stood there, just to keep watch. Clubgoers fled, thinking it was a raid, Grossman said.

"We're done, " he remembers telling Brewer on the phone, eyes glued to his security monitors. Bar sales plummeted that night.

Police said it was a routine security measure. Grossman said it was an intimidation tactic, a frustration after more than a month of trying to prove he was a good neighbor.

"I can't afford this, " he said this week.

- - -

Grossman has a lot to lose.

His three-story house towers over the others in the quaint Virginia Park neighborhood. It's gray and blue, like his nightclub. He had it built in 2001. Its market value, according to the county property appraiser, is $534, 075.

In his driveway sit his two red sports cars, a Mercedes CLK 320 convertible, and a Porsche with a license plate that says LAAATER.

His wife, Vaneeda, pulls up on a recent day in a BMW SUV. She's a Realtor, and a bodybuilder like her husband. Grossman used to watch her work out at Xtreme Total Health & Fitness and got the courage to talk to her at Whiskey Park in SoHo. They married last year.

When she moved into the home, Grossman replaced his pool table with a dining room table.

His 7-year-old, Jacob, zooms along the sidewalk in a Hot Wheels race car, and 5-year-old Chase storms the impeccable lawn with a kid-sized Escalade - customized with Empire bumper stickers on the back.

Grossman plays kickball with them, barefoot on the lawn, in a Hawaiian shirt. In the back of his mind, the night's gloomy weather forecast lingers. No one goes clubbing in the rain. But even when the dance floor is empty, he still has 60 employees to pay. They work in maintenance, security, behind the bar.

Grossman's critics ask him why he continues a business that promotes hard drinking and partying, instead of something more productive for society.

Nightlife is the only business Grossman knows. "I can't shut down what I'm good at."

A Maryland native, Grossman came to Tampa in 1991 with intentions to graduate from the University of South Florida with an economics degree.

To make extra cash, he got a gig as a bouncer with former downtown club 911. Grossman zoomed up the club's chain of command, and in 1993, he became a business partner.

He chose the club over the degree, a decision that launched his career.

By 1995, Grossman's downtown club emptied as the Ybor nightlife windstorm came alive. He went with the crowd, finding a job as the general manager of Empire, which was a Gothic alternative club then.

The average lifespan of a Tampa nightclub is two to three years, he said. Grossman said he has kept Empire afloat for more than a decade by keeping abreast of nightclub trends and giving people what they want.

He gave them booty music when they were done with Goth, then played trance until the glow stick era dimmed. About four years ago, he noticed hip-hop dominating MTV and pop culture, so he made the switch.

These days, hip-hop is the only genre that brings people out in masses to Ybor dance clubs.

People ask him why he can't open a jazz club. It's less rowdy and would draw a more mature crowd.

"That's great, " Grossman tells them. "You open a jazz club."

- - -

It's 2 a.m. on a recent Thirsty Thursday, and bass vibrations seep through the walls of Grossman's office. Bouncers just broke up the only fight of the night.

"We straight out there?" he asks a manager. "Did you find a cop? Get them trespassed."

Since the shooting, Grossman has begun permanently banning fighters from re-entering his club. Anyone who tries could be charged with trespassing. He thinks it'll weed out the troublemakers.

Grossman leaves his office for his hourly patrol of the club. He has no idea who sings the song everyone seems to know the words to, but a clubgoer recognizes him from TV interviews and calls him a "cool white guy."

Down the street that night, two managers at Club Fuel were arrested for repeat noise violations. Just one conviction could get their liquor license suspended for 30 days. Fuel has eight charges.

Grossman checks the DJ booth to make sure Empire gets none. He insists his place isn't like that other club.

He leaves the bouncers in place for the Seventh Avenue exodus in less than an hour, then returns to his virtual guard tower.

Miss something, and Grossman could lose his Empire.

Alexandra Zayas can be reached at 226-3354 or azayas@sptimes.com.

[Last modified July 5, 2007, 08:01:42]