Business Vote To Keep Dublin Town
Shops in the city centre have voted in favour of keeping the business group Dublin Town for another five years.
Retailers pay 5% of their yearly rates bill to the organisation which then takes charge of things like the Christmas lights, street cleaning and promotions like Dine in Dublin and the Dublin Fashion Festival.
Dublin Town has said in the past two years it's cleaned up 38,000 square metres of graffiti and over 34,000 hazardous items like used syringes.
The group was set up ten years ago, but recently the head of the Restaurants Association of Ireland began a campaign to get rid of the group.
The No to BID Campaign yesterday released a statement claiming a victory even though the ballot was still ongoing.
After the votes were counted it turned out businesses had actually voted in favour of retaining Dublin Town by a margin of 54% to 46%.
Dublin Town has released a statement:
"We note the endorsement provided by the business community in the democratic vote to renew DublinTown for a further five-year term.... It has been a pleasure to serve our 2,500 members over the past nine years. We would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their support and look forward to continuing to work on their behalf."