As the holiday season gets underway, the Dillon Post Office opened late Tuesday, Dec. 10, without warning customers, who experienced long lines for package pickup.

Silverthorne resident Tory Hauser said that he arrived at the Dillon Post Office about 10 minutes before 9 a.m. Tuesday because his work schedule makes it hard to find time to wait in lines at the post office.

But Hauser, who had three yellow slips indicating he had packages to pick up, said that 9 a.m. came and went without the customer service window at the post office opening. He waited another 45 minutes, hoping for the service window to open before leaving.

“It’s so rude. It’s so unimaginable. I’ve had my P.O. Box here since 1981. It used to be really good, but these past 5 years have been horrible,” Hauser said. “It just gets so frustrating if you have limited time, or even if you don’t.”

In recent years, the Dillon Post Office has become notorious for unannounced closures, long lines and other issues.

Back in late October and early November, the post office closed several days over a two-week period with little notice to customers. The post office also experienced mail delivery issues in August, after law enforcement reported that it had been broken into and burglarized. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service has provided no update on the reported burglaries.

During the 2022-23 holiday season, the Dillon Post Office for weeks restricted access to P.O. boxes due to vandalism to the building. During that timeframe, residents reported delays in receiving mail, including bills and other important documents.

Late last year, the U.S. Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General found that residents of Colorado mountain towns experienced significantly lower on-time performance, especially for package delivery, than the rest of the state. The audit identified hiring and retention as the biggest challenges for the U.S. Postal Service facilities in Colorado mountain times.

A U.S. Postal Service spokesperson did not respond to questions Tuesday about whether the Dillon Post Office is experiencing staffing issues heading into the holiday season.

But the Dillon Post Office did open Tuesday — albeit late — and the workers appeared to not take the lunch break usually scheduled from noon to 1:30 p.m.

Around noon Tuesday, Silverthorne resident Justine Spence stood midway through a line of about two dozen people with her 8-year-old daughter, Blase, waiting to pick up a package. The two said they had been there for about an hour.

“Five years later,” Blase joked as she waited in line with her mother. She counted 14 people still in line ahead of them.

Spence noted that “it’s not unexpected,” and it has become “kind of normal up here” to wait in long lines at the Dillon Post Office. She said while it can be frustrating, it’s not the fault of the local workers.

Closer to the back of the line, Heeney resident Chris Brown also waited with a yellow slip for package pickup in his hand. Brown said it was the second day he’d tried to stop by to pick up the package and the second time in one day that he’d been to the post office, since it was closed when he stopped by around 9 a.m. Already having waited 30 minutes, there were still more than 20 people ahead of him in line.

While Hauser wasn’t able to get his package Tuesday morning, he said he planned to try again Tuesday afternoon. He said that communication from the post office would go a long way for customers.

“You shouldn’t be able to run a business that way. I couldn’t run a business and not communicate with people,” Hauser said. “Any type of communication with people goes a long way but they don’t do it.”