Dry Cleaning Business Closes Abruptly -- Customers Try To Retrieve Clothes

``What a fiasco!'' said property manager Jim Bakke.

``What a mess!'' exclaimed attorney Tim Black.

Those were some of the kinder remarks being tossed about yesterday as angry customers and others scrambled to sort out the mess created when a high-volume dry cleaner abruptly closed its five outlets.

Jules and Marion Dabbous, owners of Dollar Saver Cleaner Club, filed for personal bankruptcy Tuesday, just days after closing the doors of what may be the largest dry cleaning business on the Eastside.

The corporation, which has not filed for bankruptcy, operated outlets in Factoria, Redmond, Totem Lake, Mercer Island and Edmonds.

The Dabbouses could not be reached for comment yesterday. Their attorney, Greg Cavagnaro, declined to provide information about their whereabouts or discuss business matters.

Other dry cleaners had negotiated to take over at least some of Dollar Saver's business sites and were startled to learn Monday that the stores had been closed and customers locked out.

``Our role was going to be to try to come in and keep it going, to give (customers') clothes back,'' said Black, attorney for Economy Dry Cleaners in Kirkland. ``We had no idea they were just going to slip out and leave.''

Black said Dollar Saver owes Economy ``in the neighborhood of $20,000'' in unpaid dry-cleaning bills. Dollar Saver contracted with Economy and other cleaners after its own plant was shut down about two months ago.

Starting last Friday, hundreds of unhappy Dollar Saver customers found themselves locked out of the stores. Signs taped inside the doors informed ``members'' that the ``club'' was closed as of Sunday, but that they could pick up their clothes Monday morning.

Mary Murphy waited outside the locked door of the Totem Lake outlet for more than four hours Monday in a futile attempt to pick up six of her husband's suits.

``I'm so angry,'' she fumed as she stood outside the still locked door yesterday. ``My Irish is up. My Irish is more than up, it's past due.''

Murphy finally was able to enter the store yesterday afternoon after the landlord received the go-ahead from his attorney to unlock it. She found her husband's suit coats but not the pants, which had been sent to Economy Dry Cleaners.

When another Dollar Saver customer, Terry Sullivan, looked for an order, he found a shirt at the Factoria store, a pair of pants at the Economy plant in Kirkland, and another shirt at Mercer Island. Four other shirts were still missing yesterday.

Economy and `Y' Pay Mor Cleaners teamed up yesterday to distribute clothes to the proper outlets and return them to customers. `Y' Pay Mor plans to take over Dollar Saver's former Mercer Island location and is considering moving into the Factoria store as well. Economy plans to operate the Redmond store.

Customers and creditors alike objected to business practices that came to light in the abandoned Dollar Savers storefronts yesterday. Sullivan complained that a shirt in his prepaid dry-cleaning order had been laundered, not dry-cleaned. Murphy discovered that the suit coats she had paid to have cleaned were marked to be sprayed and brushed instead.

Stacie Cantu, an employee at Dollar Saver's Mercer Island branch, said that after employees' checks repeatedly bounced, her bosses began paying her out of daily cash receipts. When the company closed its dry-cleaning operation - reportedly because the equipment was repossessed - ``We were instructed to tell people we were remodeling.''

It was a big fall for a company that Economy manager Fakhrei Zegallai described as the Eastside's biggest dry cleaner. `Y' Pay More's Grace said Dollar Saver grossed $900,000 last year, according to records provided to him this spring when he was considering buying the company.

The companies discussed a buyout after Dollar Saver ran up a $15,000 debt for dry cleaning by `Y' Pay Mor. Grace said he ended negotiations when his lawyer discovered Dollar Saver was in arrears on its state and federal taxes.

``Thank goodness we had a good attorney or we would have bought a $200,000 tax liability - at least $200,000,'' Grace said.