During the summer of 1977, many "discos" in the NYC area almost went out of business because fathers were keeping their daughters home. The young men of NYC were probably the happiest when this guy was caught because they could start getting girls to go on "dates" again.
Discos were big that year. That was right before the "Saturday Night Fever" craze that brought disco to a point of oversaturation. Then The Knack came out with "My Sharona" and all went back to normal again.