Post office boxes relocate to Spin Alley

Residents will soon no longer be able to walk down to Richmond Beach Foods and buy their morning latte or pick up their mail at the post office.

Both the store and the post office will close on Sept. 30, although the store will eventually reopen under a new owner after going out of business. The post office, which has more than 190 boxes, will be relocated to Spin Alley Bowling Center.

“These places aren’t real money makers,” said Harley O’Neil, owner of Spin Alley Bowling Center. “I saved the bowling alley for the community and I feel the same way about the post office.”

The possibility that the post office boxes would not be relocated concerned many residents and market employees. A meeting was organized Sept. 9 at the Richmond Beach Library, in an effort to keep the post office open. The landowner, post office representatives, a U.S. Postal Service postmaster and about 15 concerned community members attended.

“I am taking a stand as a consumer, a taxpayer, and as a citizen to help preserve our individual rights and to make an effort to have our institutions service our needs and be accountable to us,” said market employee Karen Stein.

Stein, 64, has been a Richmond Beach Foods employee for four years, and works in the post office. She is currently looking for a job in a different field due to the market closure. After a post office box holder came up with the idea of a petition, Stein said it garnered about 700 signatures at its location on the post office counter.

The post office is operated under a contract with the United States Postal Service and the store owner is responsible for the mail and hiring employees. The U.S. Postal Service contract pays a monthly fee to the business owner to pay post office employees and expenses.

Bill Hardman, current owner of the market, said he often lost money because of the post office.

The two employees are paid $8 to $9 an hour with no vacation time or benefits. U.S. postal workers are usually paid $17 an hour with full benefits and vacation, said Ron Kusunose, Seattle interim postmaster.

Alan Gross, the new market owner who plans on remodeling the location, previously ran the market for 20 years. He would consider keeping the post office if the contract stipend was increased, he said.

“I would like to keep the post office,” Gross said. “But I want to be able to recover my expenses.”

Gross said many people don’t understand how expensive it is to run a post office.

“When you’re owning a small business, it’s hard to have a lot of your energy going into something where you’re losing a lot of money,” Gross said.

O’Neil is working with the postmaster on a new contract to reopen the post office in his bowling alley. Community members at the meeting said they find the bowling alley location appealing because it is within walking distance of their homes, school and places of work. Spin Alley Bowling Center is located at 1430 NW. Richmond Beach Rd. 

The post office, like the bowling alley, will be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and until 12 a.m. on Saturdays.

O’Neil will install an espresso machine and coffee and pastries will be for sale. Community members that were used to walking to the market, reading mail, and talking to friends over coffee can maintain that tradition, he said.

“I want the post office and the bowling alley to provide an area for the community to gather,” he said.