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Those planning special events or in need of rental equipment in Minot will have to look elsewhere as City Laundry and Dry Cleaners announced Wednesday that it will be selling the rental portion of the business to AmeriPride Apparel, a nationally-known rental supply and linen company.

"We've been thinking about this for a long," said Pete Glueckert, who owns the two minot locations with business partner Scott Johannsen. "Two of the five stockholders have had health issues and didn't want to continue with everything so it made sense to sell."

City Laundry and Dry Cleaners, with locations in Minot, Williston and Miles City, Mont., will sell the rental aspect of the business, which offered such items as mops, floor mats, linens, uniforms and other items for rent to local restaurants and for special events.

AmeriPride, based in Minneapolis, is a nationwide distributor of rental work apparel, cleaning supplies, protective wear and other products similar to what City Laundry was offering.

"We already service the same towns in western North Dakota that City Laundry did so it was really just a duplication of efforts," said Rick Siebels, general manager of family-owned AmeriPride.

When the buyout takes effect Dec. 4, Glueckert said the Williston and Miles City locations will close entirely while the two Minot locations will continue to offer dry-cleaning and laundry services. He explained that those two locations don't do enough volume of shirt and laundry business to stay open.

"We will be going from 40 people to 11, but AmeriPride has said that it will be hiring some of our drivers, salesman and service people at each location so that people in the area will continue to have the services available," Glueckert said.

Beyond the loss of the rental business, Glueckert said nothing about the service or store hours of City Laundry will be changing.

For AmeriPride, Siebels said the company will begin offering customers their own line of supplies by Dec. 7 out of its branch office on the east side of Minot.