The PR manager of the venue formerly known as Stringfellows is not, to coin a phrase, a happy bunny. He says that the closure "goes against everything this country is supposed to be about - advancement and democracy". Some of us, including my nine-year-old daughter, who did a little victory dance when she heard it was closed, happen to think that it is a victory for people power.
To be more precise, it is a victory for people such as veteran protester Vera Brady. She and about 15 others protested every Thursday, Friday and Saturday, in all weathers, until they shamed the punters into staying away.
Certainly a battle has been won, but closing Stringfellows leaves a whole slew of deeper issues unresolved. For example, it is absolutely daft that no particular planning permission is needed for a club like this or for a sex shop. Opening an internet cafe needs planning permission, but anyone can set up a sex shop as just another retail outlet.
Bono got caught out by this fact some time ago in one of his "man of the people" walkabouts. A photographer snapped him under a sign for a so-called adult boutique in Capel Street. Such an opportunistic photo would be even easier now, given the proliferation of such shops. Distasteful as they are, at least if legislation were passed enabling local authorities to severely limit their numbers in a particular area, and to prevent lapdancing clubs setting up in residential areas at all, it would be a major improvement.
Families in the Montpelier and Arbour Hill area on Dublin's northside have even more pressing problems. Imagine taking your children in uniform to school in the morning and having a driver in a car crawling along beside you ask, "Are you doing business?" Since women working in prostitution began to move into the area about three years ago, kerb crawlers seem to think that any woman in the area is fair game at any time. Jenny Archbold and her daughter Vicky live in the Montpelier area.
They describe discarded condoms and needles littering the ground, and certain men, driving everything from Nissan Micras to Rovers, soliciting so regularly that they know their car registrations by heart.
Ironically, this is all a byproduct of Ireland's "advancement". When Collins Barracks became a museum, the women who worked in that area were moved on.
When the Luas made it impossible for cars to pick up the women, they began to drift towards Arbour Hill and Montpelier. This residential area became a magnet for kerb-crawlers, to the horror of local families.
However, neither Jenny nor Vicky could be described as faint of heart. For the past three years, they and other local women have held vigil on the streets every single night. Except Tuesday. That's bingo night, and it is sacrosanct. Residents from nearby areas cover Tuesdays.
The residents' efforts are targeted at the men who are soliciting, not the women involved in prostitution. Much as they would like them to operate anywhere except in their area, the compassion that the local women feel for many of the women caught up in prostitution is obvious. They say that they are all somebody's daughter or sister, and that some of them are in a pitiful state. Recent research by Siobhán Quinlan involving 22 women working in prostitution bears this out. Half the women in the study reported being sexually abused as children. Half were under 18 before becoming involved in prostitution. Fifteen had attempted suicide, while 17 had been attacked in the past year.
From July 2005 to June 2006, there were 264 cautions issued by gardaí to women working in prostitution in this area as compared to 41 to male clients. Eighteen women and seven men were arrested. Sweden has had a significant fall in prostitution by a completely different approach, that instead vigorously targets the market for prostitution. Only clients are criminalised.
There is a strong argument to be made to do the same in Ireland.
The residents say that if you throw a bag of litter on the street and you can be identified, Dublin City Council will name and shame you. They want the same to happen to men who solicit women, because the fines are easily paid and no publicity follows.
In the meantime, with the constant help and support of local Labour councillor Emer Costello, the residents hope to get CCTV installed. There has been a fall in the numbers haunting the area due to the fact that the residents take car registrations and they have a good working relationship with local gardaí. However, they cannot be expected to maintain a vigil forever. A Garda committee recommended that the Montpelier/St Bricin's area should have CCTV some years ago, but then things became much more labyrinthine. The responsibility for the scheme was passed by the Department of Justice to Pobal, which manages programmes on behalf of the Government and the EU.
It is an incredibly complex project for any residents' group to take on, involving sensitive issues of privacy and data protection.
A preliminary technical study is required, and while the maximum grant available of €100,000 seems generous, the residents will have to find at least €15,000 themselves, a well-nigh impossible task. Also, there is no funding for ongoing running costs.
If the residents lived in what is called a Rapid area, that is, one of the 45 most disadvantaged urban areas, all the costs would be covered. Given that the gardaí recommended the installation of CCTV, and the need is so obvious and pressing, it is very unfair that the residents are being expected to shoulder so much expense and responsibility.
The local people fear a tragedy. There has already been one: the death of teenager Lynette McKeown, who was last seen alive in the area before her body was found dumped in Co Kildare.
Local children have lost their innocence, because they have seen transactions between adults they should never have to witness. Worse, parents fear that some kerb-crawling man will snatch a child. These women already deserve a medal for their community spirit and initiative. Would it be too much to ask that they should not have to jump through hoops to get a CCTV system?