It’s a Virtual Spin Cycle at the Worldwide Washeteria

As Internet cafes become yesterday’s news and Web kiosks pop up everywhere from hospitals to carwashes, 21st century task-combiners can also welcome the Internet laundromat. Lavanderia.tv’s billing as “Earth’s First Internet Laundromat” may be a bit hyperbolic (indeed, a Web search turns up cyber-mats ranging from Sud City in Redondo Beach to the Clothes Wash Cafe on Tobago, a tiny island in the West Indies). Nonetheless, the washeteria is indubitably one of the first L.A. establishments where Web terminals go mano a mano with the washers. “It’s a natural fit,” says co-owner John Danpour. “You’ve got to do something while you wait for your clothes, so why not go online?”

Danpour, along with brothers Henry and Sauli, opened Lavanderia.tv in May on a parcel near La Brea and Pico that had been vacant since a shopping center on the site burned down during the ’92 riots. (Their development company, the Phoenix Group, invests in low-income neighborhoods.) “We wanted to support bridging the digital divide and bring the Internet to people who may not have access to computers,” he says.

For $6 an hour (half the rate at Kinko’s), latter-day Lavernes can e-mail friends, check sports scores, read movie reviews or surf at will after sorting their colors and whites. Danpour offers preset shortcuts to links including Yahoo, Hotmail and his own investment site. The two DSL-enabled terminals are also equipped with printers and software that restricts, um, inappropriate use--at Lavanderia.tv, they keep it clean.