Rancho Palos Verdes wants the Postal Service to ZAP this ZIP idea.

RETURN TO SENDER: Thanks to the TV show, 90210 may be the world’s most famous ZIP code--actually, it’s the world’s only famous ZIP code. But ZIP code status-consciousness is not confined to Beverly Hills. It has also spread to the Palos Verdes Peninsula, where some Rancho Palos Verdes denizens are none too pleased they’ll soon be sharing numbers with “less desirable” places to live.

Because of what it calls a database overload, the U.S. Postal Service plans to divide street addresses on the peninsula into two ZIP codes, effective July 2. All Rancho Palos Verdes addresses will now come under a 90275 code, and addresses in the three other peninsula cities will keep the 90274 number.

But the change also means parts of San Pedro and Eastview, which lies adjacent to Rancho Palos Verdes, will get the 90275 code, leading one resident to protest he feels he’s being “ghettoized into a less desirable ZIP code.”

In a letter to the local postmaster, W. E. Ballard complains: “I have nothing against San Pedro . . . but I paid a significantly higher price to move to the ‘real’ Rancho Palos Verdes. I deeply resent being separated out from the rest of the peninsula and having my ZIP code ‘bused’ to another area.”

However, many Rancho Palos Verdes residents already share numbers with San Pedro and Lomita. The city uses 90732 (San Pedro) and 90717 (Lomita) as well as the 90274 ZIP.

Other residential concerns about the changes: the cost and inconvenience of having checkbooks and business cards reprinted, and the difficulty the Postal Service might have in getting used to its new delivery system.

Meanwhile, don’t blame Rancho Palos Verdes city officials for the zippy changes. Assistant City Manager Pam Antil said that the city has been requesting the merger of the three ZIPs since the early 1980s, and the recent changes made by the Postal Service were entirely its own.

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STAMPING OUT CRIME: They can handle rain, sleet and snow--just don’t call them the Postal Posse.

Postal carriers were apparently peeved when they learned that an experimental program in Redondo Beach, in which two letter carriers are toting cellular phones to report crimes, was being called the Postal Posse. They’ve asked that the name be changed.

“Postal Posse is catchy, it has a nice ring to it and you could probably do a miniseries around it, but we’ve called it ‘carrier alert’ for years,” said Jim Goins, president of the local letter carriers union.

He said the name Postal Posse sends the wrong message.

“It makes it sound like we’re rounding up crooks,” Goins said.

Goins said he received complaints from area letter carriers that the name pits the postal workers against criminals, putting the postal workers in potential danger.

“We’re not going to go tap someone on the shoulder and say: ‘You’re under arrest in the name of the Postal Posse,’ ” Goins said. “They might just attack the carrier.”

City Manager William E. Kirchhoff said he would be happy to change the name. The program has been successful in its first month, he said, with the carriers making about five helpful calls to police.

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SPECIAL DELIVERY: Not getting enough TV in your life? Stop by your friendly Torrance Main Post Office, where you are now able to watch TV while you’re waiting in line.

No, you won’t be able to watch a rerun of the entire “Shogun” miniseries, or a complete edition of “60 Minutes”--even at the post office you wouldn’t have enough time for that. But you will get a chance to watch some three-minute Postal Service infomercials on a variety of fascinating postal-related topics: dog bites and letter carriers, overnight mail services for Father’s Day procrastinators, that hot new Christmas stamp--the list goes on.

The Torrance Main Post Office at 2510 Monterey St. set up its infomercial TV screen about six weeks ago. Other branches will probably add the equipment as well, said postal spokesman Larry Dozier.

“We’ve gotten some very postive responses from it so far,” Dozier said. “It makes the time pass while you are in line.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“We felt . . . not a part of the class, because we did not receive our diplomas. We felt, a little bit, outsiders.”

--Frank Endo, a Japanese American student who did not graduate from San Pedro High School in 1942 because he was taken to an internment camp during the war.