Efforts begun in late summer by the U.S. Postal Service to remove stamp vending machines from post offices nationwide are having an effect on customers at Vicksburg’s post offices, adding to changes already in the works for area postal customers.

“I hate it,” said Larry Tolliver, exiting the Pemberton Square Boulevard facility Wednesday. “When I only need one stamp, I have to come wait in a line.” The absence of the vending machines means when windows are closed, stamps can’t be purchased, period.

“I didn’t use them,” said Autumn Sanford, 19, shortly after mailing a batch of forms to Mississippi State University. “But it is kind of crazy not to have a machine.”

The Postal Service said the change was meant to stem the tide of repair and maintenance costs to single-stamp and multistamp booklet machines — estimated at about $66 million last year — some 15,000 to 20,000 stamp machines were taken out of the nation’s postal locations. In Vicksburg, an “out of order” sign was taped to the individual stamp machine in mid-September. By October, both it and the larger vending machine nearest the mailing slots were gone.

Stamps have remained unavailable at the post office’s former home on Crawford Street.

Postal officials admit reaction in Mississippi has been mixed, as it has been nationwide.

“It was a business decision,” said Doug Kyle, a Postal Service spokesman. “But as technology advances, there’s other means of how stamps are purchased.”

Machines up to 30 years old made for a shortage of replacement parts for post offices in Mississippi, Kyle said, adding the difference between revenue generated inside the lobby and from online purchases of stamps and other postal services shrank 15 percent in the past three years.

“We call it ‘brick versus click,'” Kyle said.

Multifunction machines called Automated Postal Centers, or APCs, have replaced the older vending machines in post offices in select, often larger cities. Available around-the-clock like bank ATMs, the machines can weigh packages and print postage in addition to selling stamps.

Though Kyle said machines currently in place at post offices in Jackson, Madison, Ridgeland and Ocean Springs do not accept cash, customers can use their credit or debit cards to purchase stamps and take care of other mailing needs.

“The revenue threshold to support them in high-traffic areas is fairly high,” Kyle said, adding Vicksburg’s post office could be in line to have the APCs installed “in future years.”

In addition to purchasing stamps from the U.S. Postal Service Web site, www.usps.com, stamps are available in machines inside some grocery and drug stores. Also, stamps are available by phone at 1-800-STAMP-24 and 1-800-ASK-USPS.

Another pending change locally is ending box service from the downtown location on Crawford Street next to City Hall.

Notices were sent to owners of boxes more than eight months ago indicating a move was imminent in 60 days. However, an expected announcement from the mail recovery center in Atlanta regarding the purchase of a separate building to house the boxes has not come.

Once home to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. District Court and National Weather Service personnel through the years, the five-story building was purchased by Delta Court LLC in 2004.

Principals with the group say they have definitive plans for the building, which would entail demolition.