Implementing USPS policy on packages works well for some, frustrates others

A recent change in how the U.S. Postal Service delivers packages to some Gainesville residents and businesses has gone smoothly for some but caused frustration for others. 

In March, some Gainesville postal patrons received a letter from Gainesville postmaster Crystal Hand that said beginning Saturday, April 18, USPS would be enforcing a policy affecting post office box customers who rely solely on their post office box for mail and don't have a physical mailbox at their physical address. For those residents and businesses, packages addressed to a physical address instead of the person's or office's PO box will no longer be held at the post office with a notice left in the addressee's PO box. Instead, the package may be returned to sender due to "no mail receptacle" at the physical address.

This change only impacts customers who have relied solely on a PO box for receiving mail. Those with a standard mailbox at their home or business are not affected; that includes several Gainesville residents who for many years have gotten their mail in streetside mailboxes on Fourth, Fifth and Sixth streets as well as Harlin Drive. 

But most Gainesville merchants and offices on the square, including courthouse offices, have not had a physical mailbox at their location. They get their mail in boxes they rent at the post office. For them, unless they install a mailbox at their location, or convince shippers to use their PO Box address instead of their physical address (something many retailers refuse to do), the change means future packages that carry a physical address may be returned to the shipper. 

A story in the April 8 edition of the Times explained that the change has occurred because, for several years, large shippers such as UPS and FedEx have had an agreement with USPS in some areas to have local post offices and mail carriers deliver their packages to what they call "the last mile" of the packages' shipping process. 

In the past, packages addressed to a physical location where there was no mailbox were delivered to the patrons' post office box, if they had one. That's now changing for Gainesville PO box patrons. USPS regulations say mail must be delivered as addressed. So if it's addressed to a physical location where there's no mailbox, it may be returned to the sender.  

New mailboxes going up

Several new mailboxes have appeared as a result of the post office notice, mostly on Gainesville's south side. Three Gainesville businesses – the Shelter Insurance office and Michelle's Shear Artistry on Third Street and Mill Country Title around the corner on Main Street – quickly installed a trio of mailboxes on Leeton Luna Lane, the alley that runs behind the buildings on the west side of the square. 

Hope Hillhouse, Mill Country Title manager, said, "We collaborated with each other and went back and forth about where to put them. We thought about putting them at the back of our offices but then decided we didn't want packages left at our back doors. The location in the alley across from Michelle's shop and Doug's office seemed to be a better fit. Crystal came by at lunchtime to look at it and said it was fine." 

Hope suggested that other merchants on Main and Third streets might consider putting up mailboxes in the alley. "There's plenty of room for the mail carrier to drive through there, and they're easy to see," she said. 

  Century Bank of the Ozarks has installed a mailbox on the northwest corner of the bank's parking lot in Gainesville but will also continue to use its post office box for regular mail, said marketing director Kerrie Zubrod. 

When Century Bank's Bakersfield branch went through the same situation last year, the bank opted not to install a physical mailbox there, she said, and instead to "use our PO box address as much as possible."

For some, a challenging change

County Clerk Brian Wise said, as far as he knows, the matter has not come up before the county commission. So no physical mailboxes have been installed for county offices in the courthouse. The same goes for Gainesville City Hall on the northwest corner of the square. 

Setting a mailbox location has caused a problem for at least one Gainesville business. D. E. Pleasant, owner of Bumper to Bumper Auto Parts on the south side of the square, said the spot behind the south-side buildings where he's been directed to install his store's mailbox won't work. 

"They put a flag marking where they wanted to put it [the mailbox for his store], and it was literally in the tire track of the 53-foot truck that brought an engine to my back dock that week," he told the Times. He predicts that the MFA Oil's mailbox that has now been installed at that spot will inevitably be knocked down by vehicles moving through there.

CPA Jennifer Douglas, whose professional office is on the east side of the square, shares D.E.'s frustration about the change. But for her, the problem stems mostly from misunderstandings and miscommunications. On the same day in March when she got the post office's notice about the package-delivery change – a day during her busiest tax-preparation season – she also received a notice from the online retailer Amazon saying that tax report covers she had ordered had been returned to Amazon.

She has had at least one other instance when a package of tax information mailed to her physical address by a client was returned to the client, who then resent it using her PO box address. Jennifer eventually got the package after asking about it at the post office. 

She plans to install a mailbox but said she has encountered delays in confirming with the post office where it should be located. 

D.E. Pleasant hopes the city or the courthouse will install a set of mailboxes – called a cluster box – in a central location that multiple businesses and offices could use. Cluster boxes are common in some urban settings and usually have multiple small boxes for letters, one for each home or office, opened with a key. Packages can be left in adjoining larger boxes, opened by a key that's left in the individual's mailbox. 

Special arrangements must be made with USPS for this kind of mail receptacle because regulations require that a mailbox must be accessible to the mail carrier in his or her vehicle. Another consideration is who would pay for the cluster box. 

Mailbox alternatives

A few of the individuals and businesses contacted by the Times were unaware of the change. Others have devised mailbox alternatives. Staffers in one office where few packages are received said they would have packages sent to their home addresses rather than the office's. 

Those who worry about the security of physical mailboxes might install a type that locks, as Century Bank has done. 

Because her family's home mailbox on busy Highway 5 is sometimes knocked down by passing traffic, Hope Hillhouse now has her mail forwarded from the physical mailbox at her home to her rented box at the post office. 

When filling out the USPS card to register a new mailbox, the patron directs the mail carrier where to leave packages that are too big for the new mailbox. The choices are to leave the package outside the mailbox, leave it on the porch of the residence, leave it in another location no more than a half mile from the address, or to "leave no parcels." In that case, a notice is left in the box, and the package is held, ironically, at the post office.