US Postal Service delays: Acworth business owner blames mail for party flop

ACWORtH, Ga. - What if you threw a big party and no one showed up? That's what happened to a business owner in Acworth when she held a 10-year anniversary celebration. She's blaming the no-shows on the postal service. 

"We were so excited we had been here in Acworth for 10 years. We had food, drinks, decorations, we were doing some big giveaways," said Rhonda Brummett, owner of Celestial Jewelers. 

Brummett says the store had a 9th anniversary party last year. She says hundreds of people showed up, the store made tens of thousands of dollars in sales, and she was expecting this year to be even better. 

Brummett says for the 10th anniversary celebration she spent about $1,000 on the set-up and 1,000 promotional cards that she says were mailed to her clients. 

But she says no one knew about the party because no one received an invitation. 

"I was very disheartened. I reached out to a lot of my clients, and they had no idea," said Brummett. 

Brummett believes those invitations are somewhere with all the other mail that is missing because of the problems with the Atlanta GA Processing and Distribution Center in Palmetto. That's the facility that was built to streamline the process. 

USPS updates Atlanta mail delays

FOX 5 reached out to the US Postal Service to ask for an update on the problems. 

A spokesperson for the USPS sent a statement that reads in part: 

"Operations are improving as we continue to make significant investments in the Atlanta area, including new sorting machines, upgraded facilities and more efficient transportation, that will help ensure our organization can provide reliable delivery services for years to come." 

As a small business owner, Brummett does not have a big advertising budget, so she relies on the mail system as the best way to get the word out about special promotions. 

"We have over 12,000 people in our database, I can't just pick up the phone and call them," said Brummett. 

She says she knows other small businesses are in the same boat.  

"I think there's going to be a lot of other businesses struggling because we can't get the word out," said Brummett.