Decision could take cleaners to the cleaners

Paul Clinton

A regional air-quality board’s ban on a widely used dry cleaning

chemical could spell disaster for Costa Mesa’s fledgling Al & J’s

Cleaners, among other dry cleaners.

Joanne Rivera and her parents have operated A & J’s out of a strip

mall at Bristol Street and Red Hill Avenue for only about two years.

“We would probably go down in the dirt like everybody else,”

Rivera said of the effects of the ban. “We’re a cleaners [at the

point] where we’re still trying to establish ourselves.”

Rivera and many other Southern California cleaners bit their

tongues when the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s board

on Dec. 6 enacted the nation’s first ban on perchloroethylene, or

“perc” for short.

No dry cleaning machines that use the chemical will be permitted

in Orange County beyond 2020. More than 2,000 cleaners in four

Southland counties are affected by the ruling.

For Rivera and other cleaners, perc is the lifeblood of their

business. It’s a high-powered solvent that removes heavy soil and

stains from clothing. But when the chemical zaps a stain, a puff of

pollution is released.

And there is the problem.

The chemical is a carcinogen and should be eliminated, said Norma

Glover, a former air quality board member and Newport Beach

councilwoman. Glover held a seat on both panels until she was termed

out of the City Council in November and left the air-quality board

Dec. 7.

“We believe, based on the science, that it is harmful,” Glover

said. “Do you want a cleaner environment? If you do, you make the

hard choices.”

To conform to the new rules, dry cleaners will need to replace

their perc machines with hydrocarbon machines. The board has also set

aside $2 million to help cleaners pay for the new equipment.

To buy a new environmentally friendly machine would cost $50,000.

That would essentially wipe out the modest profit margins, between 5%

and 10% of gross sales, of these businesses.

“We don’t want to eliminate something that’s so valuable to the

economy,” Rivera said. “It’s like telling people to stop driving

automobiles.”

Rivera, who runs the cleaners with her parents, has already

decided to raise prices. In January, the price of cleaning a garment

will go from $1.75 to $2.

The ban will hit chain cleaners with less force. Bobby Patel, who

has owned Kona Cleaners in Costa Mesa for seven years, said he would

still be able to remain in business, but would be hit hard. He also

owns a cleaners in Placentia.

“I don’t think all the cost can be passed on to the consumer,”

Patel said. “The dry cleaners have to eat some of the costs.”

While environmentalists have pushed for the ban, the cleaners say

claims of the chemical’s hazards are overblown.

Without perc, the cleaners said the time it takes to launder

garments, especially silk and other delicate fabrics, will quadruple.

None of the other methods of cleaning are as effective, Patel said.

“Before banning the substance, they should have come up with

something equally good,” Patel said. “There is no really good

substitute for perc.”

* PAUL CLINTON covers the environment, business and politics. He

may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

paul.clinton@latimes.com.