More Chances to Cash In on Cachet

The inauguration of a new main post office for Beverly Hills has relieved a shortage of a prestigious item--the Beverly Hills post office box.

But though boxes are immediately available at the new main office on Maple Drive, there is still a waiting list of about four weeks at the old main office, now known as Crescent Station, in the city’s commercial district.

The addition of 3,500 boxes at Maple Drive brought the number of Beverly Hills post office boxes to about 10,000.

Despite the cachet, the U.S. Postal Service charges no more for a box in Beverly Hills than it does for one anywhere else in Southern California--$39 a year.

Customers can pay up to four times as much to rent a box from a private mail service, but those services use Beverly Hills street addresses--a significant plus for outside businesses and individuals wishing to create the illusion that they are situated in the city of legendary wealth.

Typically, a client would list a private box as a suite number rather than a post office box. Unlike the Postal Service, these mail services also accept Federal Express and United Parcel Service deliveries.

Entrepreneurs and social climbers can also have their mail sent on to Pacoima, Podunk or wherever they really are, for an extra fee of anywhere from $2 to $5 a shipment.

“The advantage is that you have a Beverly Hills address without paying $3,500 a month to lease an office,” said Patrice Peaks, manager of the UPC Beverly Hills Postal Center on Wilshire Boulevard.

The disadvantage is that the Postal Service takes no responsibility for such mail after delivery, said Beverly Hills Postmaster Kouva Fuller.

“Once it is delivered, it is no longer mail. It is private property,” she said. “If it is lost, stolen or not forwarded properly, there is nothing the Post Office can do.”