By Ruth Longoria

If you’ve dropped by the Mercer Island Thrift Shop midweek and found that old familiar “closed” sign out front, you’ll probably be pleased to hear that the City Planning Commission Wednesday night approved lifting the conditional use permit that limited the amount of hours the store could be open each week.

However, that doesn’t mean the shop will be open more days — or even more hours — at least for a while, said Cindy Goodwin, director of Youth & Family Services, which has operated the shop for many years on the Island. The store provides a large portion of the budget for the Island’s Youth & Family Services department, Goodwin said.

“We’re looking forward to adding more hours, but we just don’t have enough staff to be open more days right now,” Goodwin said. “This is a volunteer staff, and when a lot of our staff is ladies in their 80s, they can only keep up with so much,” she said.

The other major sector of volunteers is work study students from local colleges, who are good workers, but have limited experience in retail. “What we really need is more volunteers who have retail experience and customer service skills, people who want to enjoy meeting people, because the thrift shop is a great place to meet people,” she said.

The previous conditional use permit — which only allowed the shop to be open 32 hours per week — was set up about 21 years ago, Goodwin said, when the store was new to that location. At that time, some people weren’t sure how much it would affect the neighborhood to have a thrift shop on a street corner across from a residential area.

But, that doesn’t appear to be a problem — despite the overload of vehicles that take up nearly every square inch of parking up and down nearby streets, in addition to filling the shop’s parking lot, which it shares with nearby Mercerdale Park. Although a public notice was posted in advance of the hearing and notices were sent out to neighbors about the conditional use permit, the city received no adverse comments and only one e-mail from a neighbor about the proposal, and that was in praise of the thrift shop, said Richard Hart, the city development director.

“I think that’s because people appreciate the Thrift Shop and they are a good neighbor to the park and the community,” Hart said.

During the Planning Commission meeting, there was a question about moving from 32 hours a week to unlimited use, but that was quickly set aside, Hart said. “There’s no need for those kind of limitations. I told the commission that during all the years the shop has been there they have never had a complaint that has risen to the department level,” he said. “I think this will be good because the store really helps offset the city budget (for Youth & Family Services).”

As soon as there are enough volunteers available, Goodwin plans to add additional hours two nights per week. On those nights the store will be open until 7 p.m. The additional night hours should help the shop bring in an additional clientele that so far has been absent from the shop, said Suzanne Philen, Thrift Shop coordinator.

“We’re looking to pick up the nine-to-fivers who are typically at work when the store is open,” Philen said. “But, we can’t do that until we get enough volunteers, because we don’t want our customer service to drop.”

The evening hours possibility also is good news for the store’s regular customers, such as 75-year-old residents Bob and Dottie Hughes. “That’s wonderful, it will give us more hours to shop,” Bob Hughes said Friday morning as he left the store with his wife and he carried a small bag of goodies purchased at the shop.

“We’ve been shopping at the thrift store since we moved to the Island in 1975,” Dottie Hughes said. “There’s great bargains and the merchandise is high quality.” However, she added, she hopes the shop being open more hours isn’t inconvenient for the neighbors, even if they don’t openly complain.

“I’m not sure how I’d feel if I lived next door,” she said.

Thrift Shop stop

The Mercer Island Thrift Shop is currently open Tuesday, Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Donations are accepted Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

To volunteer to work in the shop, call Suzanne Philen at 236-3454.