Around New England

Supermarket Chain Gives 80-Year-Old Laundromat Owner The Boot

February 25, 2022

An 80-year-old woman known for running the cleanest laundromat in the area is going out of business because a supermarket chain that owns the building plans to put its own laundromat in her space, the woman told a local newspaper.

Karen Faul owns Clean All Over Laundromat off Route 7 in Great Barrington, a town of about 2,000 people in western Massachusetts, one town east of the New York state line.

“It’s known to be clean. People come from 20 miles away because we’re known as the cleanest laundromat in the Berkshires,” Faul said, according to The Berkshire Eagle, which reported the story Thursday, February 24.

Faul told the newspaper she has never had trouble with Big Y, the supermarket chain that owns the property, but that a company official told her the company has other plans for the space and therefore would not renew her lease. She told the newspaper she has heard the company wants to open its own laundromat there.

“There’s nothing illegal about it. There’s nothing I can really do about it,” Faul told The Berkshire Eagle.

She told the newspaper that it’s too expensive for her to move to another spot and that it’s difficult to get a new gas hookup. She also noted she might have trouble competing with the supermarket’s laundromat if the supermarket company opens a new laundromat there.

Instead, she’s planning to close her laundromat – the only one in town — on Tuesday, March 1.

The Berkshire Eagle reported being unable to reach a Big Y spokesman at the company’s headquarters in Springfield. NewBostonPost could not immediately reach a Big Y spokesman on Friday, February 25.

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