KITA-KYUSHU--Applause rang out after each exotic dancer completed her set on a rotating stage here in late November. But it was a far cry from the boisterous atmosphere that had rocked the club in its heyday.

And now, after years of dwindling business and the recent spread of the novel coronavirus, the owner has finally lost her drive to continue operating A-kyu Kokura Gekijo (A-list Kokura Theater), the last remaining strip club on the southern main island of Kyushu.

“The strip joint hasn’t been very profitable these days,” said Keiko Kimura, 69. “But we would be doing OK if we didn’t have this coronavirus.”

She has decided to close the curtain on the theater’s 40-year history around May 2021.

Strip clubs used to be big thing around the country, but that form of adult entertainment is now nearly extinct.

Kimura and her now-deceased husband renovated a cafe and opened A-kyu Kokura Gekijo around 1980 on the second floor of a back-alley building in a busy area near JR Kokura Station in Fukuoka Prefecture.

She was previously involved in running a strip joint in Nakasu, Fukuoka’s red-light district, but opening the new theater was not an easy task because multiple strip clubs were already fiercely competing in the area at the time.

To bring in customers, Kimura dispatched all her employees on the streets to put up posters. She also had a truck driven around the city to promote shows at the club.

Her publicity stunts worked. A-kyu Kokura Gekijo enjoyed a booming business, and it sometimes received 200 customers a day in the 1990s.

Strip joints like Kimura’s used to be a staple in nightlife districts around the country.

Hisashi Inoue, an author who died in 2010, famously worked and wrote scripts for performers at a strip club in Tokyo’s Asakusa district.

Takeshi Kitano, a comedian and acclaimed film director, honed his skills by performing stand-up gigs between stripteases. Many other comedians did the same.

But the clubs started offering wilder and bawdier performances and services, prompting authorities to strengthen control over the industry.

The 1985 revised Amusement Business Law put the squeeze on many strip joints. Kimura said the much tighter regulations made it difficult for her to promote the club like before.

At the height of the industry, 300 strip joints existed across Japan. Kimura estimates that only around 20 have survived.

The interior of A-kyu Kokura Gekijo has not much changed since the opening. The big mirrors and the revolving stage have been fixtures over four decades.

Although business has slowed since the 1990s, Kimura was confident that she could continue operating the strip club.

But the situation took a turn for the worse in April, when A-kyu Kokura Gekijo was forced to close for two months under the central government’s COVID-19 state of emergency.

Kimura reopened the theater in June with anti-virus measures in place, but sales reached only half of the level of the previous year.

Kimura plotted a comeback after the central government announced cash handouts worth up to 2 million yen ($19,250) each to support small and medium-sized businesses affected by the pandemic.

However, the government decided to exclude the sex industry from the benefits.

“It was this discrimination by the central government that battered my spirit,” Kimura said. “I have paid taxes properly and donated part of the sales to a social welfare council. It’s just not right to be discriminated against like this.”

The timing could not have been worse because Kimura has also been in poor health lately.

“It just crushed me,” she said, explaining her decision to close A-kyu Kokura Gekijo.

Long-time customers have begged Kimura to change her mind.

“I am fascinated by the gravitas that dancers show in an all-or-nothing effort on the stage,” said a 47-year-old company employee who has frequented the club for 10 years. “I want the theater to stay in business one way or another.”

But Kimura is not optimistic. She said she would even consider shutting down earlier if the COVID-19 situation worsens.

On one night in late November, about 20 people, both male and female, occupied the 50-or-so capacity theater and applauded the dancers performing under the red and blue spotlights.

A 47-year-old female company employee said after her first visit to the joint, “I have wanted to come here for a long time.”

The experience was what she had expected.

“It was like a parallel universe. I was inspired by the girls,” she said.

Kimura is determined to work through her pain to serve customers, old and new, and for the dancers, who dearly call her “mama,” until the last day.

She said she feels the weight of closing the last strip joint in the entire Kyushu region.

“I wish someone could take over the theater,” she said.