Buffalo Grove stays out of dry cleaner drive-through window dispute

Despite claims it would create a competitive disadvantage for a longtime local business, Buffalo Grove trustees on Monday granted a new dry cleaning business a permit for a drive-through window.

The vote allows Tide Dry Cleaners to operate a drive-through lane at 310 W. Half Day Road, in the Woodland Commons shopping center.

Village trustees approved the measure over the objections of Rainbow Cleaners, which has operated out of Woodland Commons for more than two decades. Daniel Wolf, an attorney for Rainbow Cleaners owner Jesun Whang, said granting the permit damages his client's business.

"Rainbow has been a fixture in Woodland Commons for about a quarter of a century," he said. "The approval of a special use for this drive-through dry cleaner within the very same shopping center will necessarily diminish and impair the value of Rainbow's property rights."

Wolf added that Rainbow has a lease with the shopping center's owners that prohibits another dry cleaner from locating there.

But village officials said if such a clause exists in Rainbow's lease, then its owner has remedies stated in his contract to address a possible breach.

"When you tell me to pay no attention, like the Wizard of Oz, to the remedy behind the curtain, I have a little problem with that," Trustee Jeffrey Berman told Wolf.

Berman later said he respects Rainbow as a long-standing member of Buffalo Grove's business community, but the village has a limited regulatory role, and the lease between Rainbow and Woodland Commons is a private contract.

"It is not the village's province to protect those tenants from competition," he added.

Trustee Dave Weidenfeld cast the only vote against the drive-through permit, saying he was concerned about traffic interfering with a fire lane. The traffic plan had been modified prior to unanimous approval by the village's Planning and Zoning Commission.