An Upper East Side cleaner is suing a disgruntled customer who got his knickers in a twist over the service and plastered his gripes around the neighborhood – and on the Web.
Todd Layne Cleaners, which has filed a $100,000 defamation suit, won an injunction in Manhattan Supreme Court to prevent Evan Coyne Maloney from entering the store but failed to win a ban on his fliers that proclaim, “Todd Layne Cleaners SUCKS and IS OVERPRICED,” or shut his Web site, toddlaynecleanerssucks.com.
The cleaners, owned by Todd Ofsink, “is trying to stick it to me hoping that I’ll back down. I have to fight it,” Maloney told The Post.
Maloney began plastering the fliers around his building at 244 E. 77th St., also home to the cleaners, after what he claimed were nine months of atrocious service – including soggy clothes, fluctuating hours and detergents that cause hives. It was employees’ rudeness that prompted him to set up the Web site, he said.
“That’s my opinion. It’s clearly protected speech,” said the 34-year-old software engineer who makes documentaries and considers himself a First Amendment advocate. His film, “Indoctrinate U.,” about free-speech suppression on campuses, just opened at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
The cleaners, however, claim Maloney is a kook who wanted the business to receive his packages like a concierge and to check his pants pockets like a nanny.
“The First Amendment is being used as a shield improperly,” said Debra Guzov, lawyer for the cleaners.
Maloney said his problems began after he was assured by a worker that he could get his clothes back cleaned on the same day. Yet when he came at 5:30 p.m. for pickup, the store was closed.
“No apology, no ‘sorry for the inconvenience,’ no acknowledgement at all on their part that they had screwed up,” he writes on his site.
He also complained that the store’s eco-friendly detergent gave his fiancée hives, that another time his clothes were returned sopping wet and that yet another time the cleaners failed to fish out a cellphone from his pants pocket.
“Their intimidation will not work, and in fact will only make me work harder to share these stories with other Upper East Siders and to warn them about the rude customer service, the broken promises, and the substandard, overpriced services they provide,” he said.