PPAC is a going concern–they are stocked in Michaels craft stores and I believe they make a lot of branded stuff for the designers of custom scrapbooks. Maybe with scrap booking starting to cycle down as a nationwide hobby, they can’t afford so much security. anything that is a national brand for a niche market ends up on eBay or trading boards at a “discount”.
Update from original thread:
The Collectibles Shop I talked about quietly closed a few years ago. An Italian restaurant moved into the building and is currently doing a brisk business. I don’t think they’re a front for anything.
And I knew about that, but Monaghan hasn’t owned or been associated with Domino’s for over a decade (since 1998.) I was wondering if someone had a problem with some other political issue relating to Domino’s since that one is such old news I assumed anyone who cared enough to boycott a company over it would keep informed on the matter.
“Nail Salons”
There are enough that pop up by me in every small store that closes that I’m suspicious that its even Possible for so many to be in business. Its like there is 1 shop for every 3 women drawing breath in this state,
including toddlers and nursing home patients. Very few of them Ever have cars parked outside of them. Gambling fronts? Pharmaceutical distribution locations? Money laundering?
I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure they can’t make a profit doing nails w/o customers.
I’ve heard about women flashers who liked to do that to truck drivers, until recent years when large numbers of women have entered that line of work. 
I have "seen many of these Äntique Shops…one in Stoughton MA appeared to have their stock from the local dump. I cannot imagine anyone buying any of the crap they had for sale.
I laughed at this when I first read it, because the idea of a non-profit front sounded so silly, at least if we’re talking organised crime, and churches are hierarchical. You can’t just open or take over a, say, Methodist church without the governing structure knowing and caring.
“Eh, Luigi, I have a new racket to launder money, we’ll give it away. The IRS will never catch on because nobody claims charitable deductions.” Bahaha.
Then I thought maybe you knew something I don’t-- your post sounded so sure, I mean you suspect a lot of churches are fronts-- so I googled. Turns out that I couldn’t find a church that was a front, but one of them has fronts.
You guessed it, it’s the Church of Scientology, which, according to Wikipedia, controls entities such as the Cult Awareness Network. That’s in addition to well-known CoS fronts like self help operations for recruiting, of course.
That’s the sort of thinking which opposed Rev. Hill of New Rochelle’s North Avenue Presbyterian in the '60s. Turned out he and his “irregulars” were dealing with The Mob.
Kinda funny when you realize wholesome Rob & Laura Petrie were living in a city where The Mob was running a numbers racket out of practically every other corner downtown. Funnier if you imagine Laura as one of the irregulars.
I work in retail and if you came into my store 10 months out of the year you’d think we were a front. We do 95% of our business in a 2 month period. The rest of the year is just babysitting the store really.
Having said that, I have noticed some seeming fronts nearby. In the city centre in particular there are lots of tiny internet cafes that offer access for €1 an hour. Like with as few as 8 computers. Even if say every customer is only spending 15 minutes on a computer there’s not exactly much profit going through and presumably rents are pretty high in the centre of town.
Also, my friend pointed this out, sex shops have proliferated in Dublin in recent years. Because of Catholic fuddyduddiness we didn’t have too many until recent years. Neither of us can figure out why there would be a market for so many sex shops when there’s an internet that has all the porn you want for free and also any paraphernalia you might want too.
To further note, my cousin runs a legit nail bar, but he has found that off-the-books payment, not paying minimum wage to staff etc. is rife in the industry.
Import/shipping restrictions?
I always have a vague idea modern sex-shops are fronts for…something? Given the ubiquity of porn on the internet and the fact that you can order toys online without the awkwardness of having to make eye-contact with a bored store-clerk while buying that extra-large tri-dildo with ridges, it seems like there are much better options for buying the same thing.
Granted there’s probably a thin slice of the population that have money to pay for porn but can’t afford internet access, and I guess if you need a dildo right now and can’t wait, mail-order won’t cut it. But I wouldn’t think those cases would make enough business in most places.
This could describe my questions about Merle Norman. They were always located in expensive mall locations and had fancy furnishings, but very few customers could be seen. I could only guess that their stuff was so expensive that they didn’t need a lot of business.
Bob
I haven’t explored that option, possible, though unlikely. We’re part of the EU. 
A lot of businesses don’t have walk-in customers at all, but they need (or think they need) public offices/storefronts. They probably have clients in by appointment as needed.
I’ve run several legit businesses out of my home that had 0 customers or no in-person contact with customers. If I felt the need to rent an office, I guess I’d appear the same way.
In the street view it looks like there is an attached house in the back. I’m guessing that’s his house and he owns the lot. Likely he opened the shop back in the '80s and he has a few clients he still works with. It’s probably more of a retirement/hobby business than anything else.
I think there are a lot of businesses where the owner owns the building and doesn’t really need to make a profit. As long as the inventory doesn’t expire, it doesn’t really matter if they make a lot of money. Book stores, curio shops, etc.
I have a friend who puts gas stations in malls. According to her, the mall contracts are pretty arcane, and have clauses that say effectively ‘you pay us x per month and y percent of your gross.’ She mentioned that most mall based nail salons are only able to get by if they keep two sets of books since they are independently run. Anchor stores, gas stations, and other ‘big name’ stores get better rates.
Empty restaurants, especially ethnic restaurants, may do the bulk of their business catering for events within the community. I know some ethnic restaurants here that only have a few tables and rarely have more than a couple dishes available, but they do booming business with weddings and events. And many of these places keep costs down by using family labor.
I have a friend who worked at a sketchy-looking rug store. They do a lot of business online (mostly on ebay), but most of their money comes from custom jobs. Wealthy clients will order tens of thousands of dollars of merchandise at a time to outfit their homes. The storefront is more of a combination of warehouse and office than a retail facility, and drop in sales are incidental.
I have a couple acquaintances in the printer copier biz. You would be amazed how much on site service work they do. One of the guys I know has like 5 employees and a 5000 square foot warehouse full of old copiers that they scrounge parts from if needed. They charge like $150/hr for service calls and his guys regularly bill 3-4 hours a day.
It’s not quite a business, but lately I have become rather obsessed with the weird flyers that are posted in the subway (NYC) for psychics and palm readers and tarot card readers. Design-wise, they’re terrible. Black and white, sometimes they have clip art of something mystical-looking, they look like they were created in Microsoft Works, and are now 50th generation photocopies. Claim to give advice based on some combination of your astrology, palm, tarot, or tea leaves, with a phone number.
I guess the thing I find so odd is that sure, I’d believe that one dopey “psychic” business is using these flyers, but it is a bunch of different ones and yet the flyers look so similar. At this point, it’s like you’d have to MAKE AN EFFORT to re-create that 1995 sad look.
So I have been wondering if this is one of those things where everyone knows that these flyers are really for prostitutes, or drug dealers, or something illegal. I’m almost tempted to call one and make an appointment, and then show up and demand answers about the flyers.