Although outdoor service is now available at the legendary Pantibar and its sister venue Pennylane, owner Rory O’Neill had shared that indoor service would not resume until all of the bar staff had the chance to be fully vaccinated.

While this Covid-safety decision was made to protect the wellbeing of staff, a bigoted social media account used the excuse to attack the venue. Their true colours were soon revealed however when they went on to equate homosexuality with pedophilia.

O’Neill shared the account in question with his Twitter followers asking them to report it. Right under the user name Queenmaeve2021, the bio read “pedo scum off our streets” followed by a call to trash Pantibar on a certain date.

Another post tried to drum up support for a flashmob to have the venue shut down before launching into a bizarre misinformed rant; “What PantiBliss is doing is forcing kids in their late teens/20s to get a jab or lose their jobs. We’ll be around for you, Rory, you scumbag.”

If you could report this account for me I'd appreciate it thanks pic.twitter.com/g5tj5hyj9G

— Dr Panti Bliss-Cabrera (@PantiBliss) August 2, 2021

The insanity didn’t end there, as a follow up tweet shook off all pretence of being anything other than a homophobic attack. It read, “The rainbow flag is about legalising sex with children. The woke scum want ur kids.”

Later in the day, O’Neill shared an update that the social media account had been suspended.

"account suspended"

Gracias a todos

— Dr Panti Bliss-Cabrera (@PantiBliss) August 2, 2021

In an interview with Pinknews, O’Neill shared their thoughts that the “far-right, anti-queer, anti-trans and anti-everything brigade” were using Covid and lockdown restrictions as a “cover to organise”.

Pantibar was also among the businesses around the country targeted with homophobic graffiti and acts of vandalism in the last few months.

This was painted on the building two doors up from Pantibar during the night pic.twitter.com/HoBo9glOuP

— Dr Panti Bliss-Cabrera (@PantiBliss) June 14, 2021

After an incident in June when a nearby building was spray painted with homophobic graffiti and arrows pointing toward Pantibar, Rory O’Neill shared with GCN – “It was a bit gutting to wake up to this after such a fantastic reopening weekend, but it’s also a timely reminder of why Pride is still important. Queer Power!”