[miaminewtimes.com – 2024.05.24] Dozens of people were lined up outside a popular Miami dry cleaner in the Florida heat Friday to recover their clothes before the business shuttered for good at 4 p.m.
The Miami-Dade Police Department posted an eviction notice on Monday, May 20, at Majestic Cleaners on SW 8th Street, leaving customers scrambling to pick up their items ahead of the Friday deadline. The business opened in 1995, according to its Yelp page.
Customers began arriving early Friday morning. By afternoon the sun was high and so were tensions.
A longtime Majestic customer, Jose Suarez, tells New Times the line wouldn’t budge. He says the crowd was waiting in scorching temperatures and growing frustrated that they couldn’t readily retrieve their belongings.
The clientele had received a text message earlier in the week notifying them that the dry cleaner was closing down. They received another alert on Thursday, warning that final pickup would take place from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday.
“The lady that was distributing the clothes says, ‘At four o’ clock, I’m closing the doors. And if you didn’t make it, sorry, you’re not getting your clothes,'” Suarez says of Friday’s chaos.
“There was a lady that came in and she says, ‘I’m going on a cruise. My clothes are still in there.’ And she was, like, banging on the window,” he continues. “Another man came in saying that his daughter’s confirmation was today at five o’clock, and that he needed to pick up her dress that had alterations done.
“People were like fighting people to try to cut in line. A guy said, ‘There’s going to be rioting if you don’t give me my clothes,'” says Suarez.
Miami-Dade police officers arrived at the popular dry cleaner around 4 p.m., Suarez says.
Court records show the landlord, MMG Tamiami Square, filed a breach-of-lease case against the dry-cleaning tenant, Iron of SFL, in April. The tenant did not respond in time to prevent eviction, and a default judgment was recorded on May 6. A writ of possession followed on May 15.
“I’ve been going there for a few years, and never had any problems with the cleaners,” Suarez says. “They were very nice: mom and pop, everybody kind of knew each other there. I was in shock that they closed down.”
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