Suds and security

Claudio Rivero is the new owner of The Clothes Pin Coin Laundry. He bought the Walnut Street laundromat last year, and has spent a considerable amount of time improving security for customers. Rivero, 33, grew up in Napa Valley and went to Pacific Union College to earn a bachelor’s in business with an emphasis on marketing. In 2016, he and his wife, Christa, moved to Paradise so she could work as a midwife at Adventist Health Feather River Hospital. With college students returning from summer break, Rivero is launching a grand reopening to welcome them back with reduced prices and specials (i.e., drying their clothes for free on Wednesdays, 2-8 p.m.). He’s also hoping to begin a fluff-and-fold service in the near future. Open daily, 7 a.m.-10 p.m., at 230 Walnut St.

What made you want to own a laundromat?

My dad used to manage a laundromat for a little while and I loved it and was like, “Man, that would be so easy to do!” So, this came up for sale, and when I talked to the previous owner, he was like, “Yeah, I make a little bit of money, not a ton, but I haven’t done any advertising, I haven’t done anything. Basically all I’ve done is kept the machines running.” And so, I was like, “Wow! Perfect! My degree’s in marketing, so we’ll get this going!”

What’s been your biggest hurdle?

For a while people were saying, “Hey, I love the little laundromat—it’s clean, it’s nice—but I’m scared because there’s homeless people in there.” I got that camera up there; it allows me to listen and talk to people, so after [a] guy was arrested [for breaking into my office] and things quieted down, there were a few times when people came in here and I could just say, “Hey, you guys aren’t doing laundry. You gotta leave,” and they would get up and leave.

So, the cameras allow you to manage the place when you’re not here?

The cameras will alert me, and actually, every time that somebody passes in front of that camera, not only do I get an alert on my phone, I get an alert on my watch. So, I can look on my watch, see a picture of who’s in there. I can take a closer look, I can use the other cameras and rewind, see what’s happening, and in five minutes I can figure everything out.

What do you do in your hours away from the laundromat?

I do contract work for Feather River Hospital, for their marketing department. I remodel our house and I have wood shops. I build things out of wood. We actually just bought a property and moved, so it’s a whole new 20 acres with an old farm house, and it’ll be quite an adventure. If there’s anything major that happens, I live 30 minutes away. So, I can be here and do anything that needs to be done.