ANACORTES, Wash. — Many Anacortes residents are having to go out of town to get some of their vehicle licensing needs addressed because the town's licensing office abruptly shut down last week.
“We've lived here for a while and we never had this before," Nancy Gosen said.
The Anacortes Licensing Office, which licenses vehicles, has been closed since Jan. 17. Countless people found out about the closure by reading a sign on its front door.
"Having this shut down for even a day is not acceptable," Mary Lafleur said.
The Anacortes Chamber of Commerce runs the office and said it has no employees right now.
"This is the first time, I've ever been ashamed of our Chamber of Commerce because their job is to help business,” Lafleur said. “The Chamber of Commerce is meant to help business thrive."
Now Anacortes residents will have to go to one of the five other licensing offices in Skagit County. The closest open is in Mount Vernon about 30 minutes away.
"All those businesses and all the people from town have to go somewhere else and that's a burden on our community,” Lafleur said. “You know our business community and our personal community and it's kind of needless."
The chamber said it can't talk about personnel matters. But did send KING a statement saying in part.
"We are committed to serving the community and we are in the process of hiring, with the goal of completing training and re-opening as quickly as possible."
"This is a great town and we work things out,” Lafleur said. “So, if there's a mistake made, there's a mistake made. Just fix it."
If you ordered anything before the closure you can pick it up in the Chamber of Commerce Office above the Licensing Office.