VENTURA : Threat Made by Post Office Called Error

About 20 Ventura residents received a special delivery last week from the U.S. Postal Service advising them to enlarge their drop slots or have their mail service discontinued.

“It’s ludicrous,” said Liz Leiper, who received the letter Wednesday. “Do you mean to tell me after 36 years my drop slot has shrunk?”

The March 10 letter requested that customers install larger drop slots by March 31. “Failure to comply with this request will result in suspension of your mail delivery,” the letter read.

But Ventura Postal Master Ron Wilson said the request was in error. “It was a typo,” he said. “There’s no way we would ever suspend service.”

The Ventura Post Office sent a total of 60 letters to residents asking them to repair faulty mail boxes as part of its annual route inspection, Wilson said.

Postal carriers scrape their fingers and knuckles on drop slots that are smaller than 1 1/2 inches wide by 10 inches long, postal officials said. The old drop slots are too small for bulky mail and rip it, prompting customers to complain, said Postal Operations Supt. Tom Hellmut.

Postal carriers are forced to squeeze items into the slots. “They shouldn’t be exposed to those kinds of conditions,” Hellmut said.

But residents should not have received threats to suspend their mail service, Wilson said. “It was misdone,” said Wilson, adding that the agency would gladly install drop slots for customers.

But Bucknell Avenue resident Robert Fennern, has already spent $40 installing a new drop slot. “It’s done,” said Fennern, who took two hours to install the slot himself.