On April 6, the second day of operations at the new West Paris Post Office, a steady stream of patrons passed through the door.

Many described the inconvenience of going nearly five years without a local post office.

“It was a pain in the butt (not having a post office) the past five years,” said Susan Glines, of West Paris. Driving to South Paris or Norway to pick up undelivered packages or send mail was “very inconvenient,” she said, adding that officials “made another promise every year” about reopening.

The post office, now at 141 Bethel Road, closed in May 2021 after its lease at 238 Main St. was not renewed. In the years that followed, the U. S. Postal Service did not provide specific timelines for reopening — a delay that pushed U.S. Rep. Jared Golden to seek action from the postal service.

“I give Golden the credit, not (Maine Sen. Susan) Collins. I give her nothing,” Glines said with a laugh. Since the closure, Golden repeatedly asked the postal service for a reopening plan and introduced bipartisan legislation aimed at preventing similar unannounced closures in rural communities.

A man who asked not to be named said, “I didn’t think I’d ever see it in my lifetime. We kept getting these stories — ‘next year, next year, next year, next month, next month, next month, next week, next week, next week.’”

Daniela Fine, of West Paris, a mother of two young children, said, “We’re happy, but it was madly inconvenient. … Often our packages wouldn’t get delivered.”

Fine said she would have to go chasing her packages down 25 minutes away in South Paris.

“I have no family in the area, so I am constantly shipping things to them. I sell things online,” she said. She said she felt it was a citizen’s right to have a post office. “We pay a decent amount in taxes.”

Former West Paris Postmaster Joan Young said the old post office was “right in the middle of town. People came in to visit.”

The new post office has an abbreviated schedule: 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., with a daily closure from 11 a.m. to noon. Saturday hours are 8:30-11 a.m.

Duke Meserve, a Vietnam veteran who lives in the attached Ledgeview apartments in the building, said he had hoped Norway would hold his mail until the new office opened, but delays forced him to pay for a P.O. box there. He lamented having to walk around the building rather than through it to access the post office.

Arriving on his rollator walker during the midday closure, Meserve said, “If they have a half a dozen people working, couldn’t they alternate and keep it open?”