Fur Flies Over Decision to Shut Port Hueneme Postal Operation : Business: Operator says it’s all because of a cat. City’s postmaster cites financial improprieties.

The operator of a tiny Port Hueneme postal station says she’s been closed down over Duffy the Cat. But the city’s postmaster says it’s all about money.

In any event, the Channel Isles Books postal operation has lost its operating permit a month after the city’s postmaster threatened to shut it down because of what he considered excessive cat hair, litter-box smells and a threat to public hygiene.

But Postmaster Barry K. Hancock, who ordered the station closed Thursday, said an audit and the subsequent closure of the shop had nothing to do with Duffy, an orange-and-white-striped tabby who had made a home for himself in the cozy, shag-carpeted Channel Isles Books shop that also offers facsimile and photocopying services.

“It’s not the cat at all,” Hancock said Friday. “It has to do with financial improprieties.”

In a May 13 letter, Hancock told station operator Judy O’Sullivan she needed to repay $2,224 that had come up short in a routine audit.

Then, on Thursday, Hancock removed postal scales, stamps and other U.S. Post Office property from the shop. He also ordered the sign above the store’s door taken down.

O’Sullivan, 70, could not explain the shortage but is willing to pay back the money in installments.

The Port Hueneme resident said she believes her contract was revoked because Hancock is upset over the publicity Duffy drew after the postmaster threatened to close the shop down in mid-April.

At the time, Hancock said he had received more than two dozen complaints about feline odors and hair and O’Sullivan’s smoking in the shop at 269 E. Channel Islands Blvd.

Several residents, he said, had complained about the odor of Duffy’s litter box and that his flying fur sent them into sneezing fits.

“If we had paid back the money, what’s the problem?” O’Sullivan said. “He wouldn’t say it’s about the cat, but I know that’s what brought this on.”

Meanwhile, residents in an adjacent senior citizens neighborhood are temporarily without a contract postal station. Some say they have come to rely on O’Sullivan’s shop and its close proximity to them.

Port Hueneme’s main post office is about a mile from Hueneme Bay, a 700-unit condominium complex for people 55 and older. The main post office is too far for some.

Helen Pennington, a resident of Hueneme Bay, said she feels Hancock is singling out O’Sullivan because of her smoking and the cat.

“I’m ticked off,” Pennington, 68, said Friday. “I’m looking at it as strictly retaliation because Duffy the Cat got all the attention.”

Pearl Knause, 90, a resident of Hueneme Bay who went door-to-door in April surveying her neighbors for their feelings about Duffy, said she is sorry to see the contract station go.

“This is the third time this has happened,” Knause said. “We’ll sure miss it. We don’t drive very far and I use about 100 stamps a month.”

“I’ll just have to go farther.”