Post Office will reduce hours in Kent

Photo by Tom Rivers – The U.S. Postal Service is reducing the hours at the Post Office in Kent, effective Jan. 11. The building is located at 1788 Kent Rd.

KENT – The U.S. Postal Service, in an effort to rein in its costs, is reducing the office hours at the site in Kent at 1788 Kent Rd.

The Post Office will be open 30 minutes less on weekdays andwill keep the same retail hours on Saturdays. The new hours are effective Jan. 11.

The Post Office lobby is currently open from Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. and then from 1:15 p.m. to 5 p.m.. The lobby is open on Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon.

With the new hours the site will be open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and then from 2 to 5 p.m.

“Current Saturday window service hours will not be reduced and access to delivery receptacles will not change as a result of the realignment of weekday window service hours,” said Karen Mazurkiewicz, WNY District Communications Coordinator for the U.S. Postal Service.

Customers will have access to their mail receptacles from 8:15 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. from Monday through Friday and from 7:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. on Saturday. The Post Office Box mail will be available daily for pick-up by 10:00 a.m. on weekdays and on Saturday, she said.

The Postal Service in 2011 announced it was going to close under-utilized Post Offices, about 3,500 nationwide, Mazurkiewicz said.

“The Postal Service began conducting community meetings and the Number One response was customers would rather see a reduction in hours than to have their Post Office closed,” she said. “Taking that feedback, USPS decided to modify its original plan and instead proposed an option where communities could keep their Post Office, but with reduced hours.”