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Date: 7/19/2021
EASTHAMPTON – After being closed throughout the course of the pandemic, the Easthampton Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) will officially reopen to the public on Aug. 2.
Services for the time being will be by appointment only, and face coverings will be required for those who are not yet vaccinated.
According to Judith Reardon Riley, an RMV spokesperson, the RMV Service Center in Easthampton will be open for business for customers with appointments on weekdays, Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Most permit, license/ID, and registration/title-related transactions will mainly be done over the phone, according to Riley. Hearings are not available at this location.
“The last date that the Service Center opened for business was March 13, 2020,” said Riley. “The Service Center was not used for any other purpose while it was closed.”
According to a social media post announcement, Wednesday senior citizen hours will continue, along with suspension hearings by phone, and learner’s permit tests will still be online. State vehicles will be used for road tests, and everyone in a road test vehicle must wear mask regardless of vaccination status.
The Easthampton RMV will be the final of the three RMVs in the Pioneer Valley to officially reopen to the public since the pandemic began. The Springfield location has been open since March 2020, and the Greenfield RMV officially reopened in October.
Back in late September, area lawmakers pushed hard for Easthampton and Greenfield to reopen their locations to offer dedicated service hours for older drivers in the region. The law in Massachusetts states that drivers 75 years of age and older must renew their license in person.
When the RMV announced Sept. 1 that dedicated service hours for 75 and older residents were going to be implemented, no Western Mass. location was included. Special hours were added to the Springfield location shortly after.
Among those lawmakers who pushed hard for this change was state Sen. John Velis. Velis had this to say about the past year without the Easthampton RMV: “While the online services provided by the RMV over this past year have been great additions, they have not been accessible or sufficient for everyone, especially older residents. This reopening will also help to reduce frustrating wait times and long commutes to other RMV locations that has inconvenienced so many in our communities.”