Hartington Post Office To Close Sept. 1, Temporarily?

Jeff Green | Aug 21, 2024

The story is familiar at this point, having already taken place in Maberly and Ardoch, and a number of years ago in Harrowsmith.

The owners of the building that houses Canada Post in Hartington, Rosebush Fuels, has informed Canada Post that they are no longer willing to rent the space for the post office to Canada Post.

The closure was announced last week in a note posted on the door to the post office.

“We are currently exploring options in the community to relocate the post office, and in the interim, temporary community mailboxes will be installed to serve the 125 customers who used PO Boxes in the Post Office,” according to a statement from Canada Post that was sent to MP Scott Reid’s office, after an inquiry to Canada Post about the situation in Hartington.

The location of the temporary boxes is not yet clear, but Canada Post said they “will be sending out letters to those impacted customers in advance, advising them where the temporary community mailboxes will be located, as well as providing them with their keys to access the mailbox.”

Canada Post also said that it was not possible to accommodate the Hartington Post Office customers in either of the two nearest post offices, Verona and Sydenham.

”The post offices in Verona and Sydenham do not have the capacity to take this number of additional customers. While we explore options for a new post office location in Hartington, mail to Hartington will be delivered from a route originating in Inverary, and for that reason call-for items will be available at the Inverary Post Office as well. The post offices in Verona and Sydenham do not have the capacity to take on these additional customers."

Travelling to Inverary from Hartington for “call-for” items represents a serious inconvenience for residents of Hartington. Inverary is 23.8 kilometres from Hartington. By contrast the Sydenham Post Office is 9.4 kilometres from Hartington and the Verona Post Office is only 5.4 kilometres away.

Apart from the distance issue, Inverary is not exactly on the beaten path from Hartington.

Susan Bayly, who lives on Canoe Lake Road, with a Hartington postal address, posted about the closure on Facebook. When contacted by the News, she said that she is upset about the closure, and about having to pick up parcels and other mail in Inverary, pointing out that for her it is a 35 minute drive to Inverary and for others, it is an even longer drive.

“It is incredibly inconvenient and it is not fair for anyone in the area. We never go in that direction and when we do go to Kingston, which is about once a month, we almost never drive down Division street. We mostly go through Sydenham and I think that is true for most people in my area. It was frustrating enough when they took our individual mailboxes away and put in a community mailbox about 10 years ago at the end of the road, just far enough that it is too far to walk. That was bad enough. Now we have to go all the way to Inverary, to not only pick up packages, but to pick up government documentation like passports as well. It’s incredibly inconvenient.