United States postal offices in Point Loma and the rest of San Diego County are beginning to feel the holiday crunch as people try to mail gifts out in time for Christmas. The Point Loma Post Office, 2931 Caãon St., has staffed an extra clerk at their service desk to help deal with all the parcels during possibly the busiest time of the year, according to a Point Loma Post Office employee.
The Point Loma office has not extended its operating hours but remains open Mondays through Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The post office at 2535 Midway Drive will also continue with regular business hours from 8 a.m. until 11 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, with Saturday hours for Dec. 22 extended until 4 p.m., according to Mike Cannone, USPS spokesman.
“So, for folks who still want to mail but can’t do it during the day because they’re at work, the Midway office is open until 11 p.m. at night,” Cannone said. “You can buy stamps, mail, [it’s] full service.”
Once the main distribution and processing center until about the mid-1990s, the office on Midway Drive has since been scaled back since the opening of the Margaret Sellers Processing and Distribution Center in Carmel Mountain in 1993, Cannone said.
The site was named for Margaret Sellers, the first female postmaster for the city of San Diego. It was named for her because of her pioneering role in the postal service, Cannone said.
Though the majority of operations were transferred to the larger, 652,000-square-foot Carmel Mountain facility, the Midway Drive office still plays a significant role as a processing center.
Even at about the half the size of the newer facility at about 300,000 square feet, the Midway Drive office processes mail on its way to South Bay and Centre City. They also process priority packages because of its proximity to the airport and FedEx offices, he said.
“But actually we’re growing back into Midway,” he said. “We’ve pretty much maximized the space here at Carmel Mountain.”
Cannone said operations moved to North County about 15 years ago because of the increasing population to the north, which meant more mail flowing through the Postal Service system, he said.
The USPS attempted to purchase a site owned by General Dynamics across the street from the Midway office but was unsuccessful, he said. The new site in North County worked well, however, because of the population growth in the region, he said.
The Postal Service expects more than 1 billion pieces of mail this holiday season, according to a statement released by the USPS. The Postal Service recommends sending packages before Thursday, Dec. 20. For those using priority mail, a Saturday, Dec. 22, mailing deadline should ensure packages reach destinations by Tuesday, Dec. 25, according to statement from the USPS. For more information visit www.usps.com