As we offer home delivery, we quite often get asked if we can put people’s newspapers in the mail box. As we have recently been advised, your mail box (that many people had to pay for) is not yours. You see under federal law (Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 1725), it’s the United States Postal Service who owns and controls that bit of property, and by their rules, nothing can be placed in there that they didn’t collect their ta… er, postage on.
No matter how dumb people think this rule is, it is federal law, and the fines are actually quite substantial, particularly for a business. Thus, we will not longer be able to leave papers in mail boxes. We can put them on door knobs or all kinds of other places, but mail boxes are off limits. If the mail box is engineered with newspaper hooks or has a newspaper slot, only then can we put the paper on the mail box. If you have a mail SLOT, that is a different animal, and we CAN continue to put your paper in your mail slot as it is not an enclosure and those are not treated the same. If you used to get your paper in the mail box, you can give us a call and we’ll be happy to find a place for your paper that is safe and secure for you!
If the location we have found to place your paper doesn’t work well for you, give us a call, we can find an option that will help you get your newspaper and comply with federal law!
The reasons we are not able to put on a door knob:
Generally we don’t’ mind hanging your paper on your door knob, we would like to explain the reason why. Obviously this isn’t a complete list, but it does cover about 99% of what can go wrong with door knob delivery:
1. Screen door is closed but main door is open. Legally, if your main door is open, but your screen is closed, we have to treat your screen door like it’s the main door, and may not open it. Our drivers can be terminated from their contracts for this.
2. Screen door is locked, and screen door doesn’t have a knob to hang the paper on. This happens a lot, some screen doors are designed in such a way that we can’t hang anything on them. Generally we’ll look for an obvious spot near the door to hang them. Some drivers may tape your paper to glass on the door if it’s available, hang on the hooks below some mail boxes that are made for papers., or as a last resort, put on floor in front of door.
3. Closed gate or other obstruction. Generally we discourage drivers from going through gates, particularly if there is evidence of a dog on the premises. Subscribers may give permission, but the driver always has the option to refuse to open gates.
4. Dangerous porches, slick porches and porches in states of disrepair. We want our drivers to be as safe as possible, this also reduces your liability if a driver were to be hurt on your property because of unmaintained structure.
5. Animals that may pose a danger, not just dogs, but snakes, deer, other wild animals, etc.
6. Too far from the road. Generally, in town, if your door is more than 100’ from the road, we’ll ask that you put a mail tube at the road. There are times when this isn’t possible, however on Rural Routes, it is mandatory. Motor tube must be within 36 inches of main road, or if a cluster of tubes or mailboxes, within 30’ of the main road, provided there is a reasonable turn off for our drivers to work safely. We can install motor tubes for as little as $10 if we can mount to something or $15 if we must put a T post in. In town, we can install motor tubes within 100’ of the road to provide a safe place for your paper.
Call (406) 952-3021 to get help finding a great spot for us to leave your paper!
Author: Andy Anderson
Andy is publisher of Foxys Publishing Co, as well as pressman, ad sales, distribution and sometime janitor. He occasionally makes a wild attempt at writing but quite often is seen running around our offices trying to "Get 39 million things done today..."
