KCOY Santa Maria, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo - News-Customers Decry Santa Barbara Bank & Trust Branch Closures
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BUELLTON - Pacific Capital Bancorp is the holding company for Santa Barbara Bank and Trust and four other smaller local banks on the Central Coast.
As part of a consolidation strategy the banking company says it's closing its Santa Barbara Bank and Trust branches in Buellton and Vandenberg Village in April.
Accounts at the Buellton branch will be moved to the Solvang branch and accounts at Vandenberg Village will move to the branch in Lompoc.
The bank says it's looking for a new location in Buellton for its ATM machine.
"I have six, seven accounts here", says Buellton branch customer Cindy Taylor who hates losing her banking convenience, "there's a lot of people in this town that walk here to the bank, they can't drive into town."
"It would be that much more traffic going over on Highway 246 into Solvang", Taylor says, "and parking in Solvang to get to the bank, it doesn't make any sense."
There are four employees at each branch but a bank spokesperson says no decision has been made on staffing levels after the consolidation.
"They don't even know what's going to happen to their jobs" says Buellton City Councilmember Holly Sierra who's joining her fellow councilmember's in writing a letter to Pacific Capital Bancorp management urging them to reconsider closing their branch.
"We've only got four banks in this town", Sierra says, "we really don't want to lose this one."
Pacific Capital Bancorp is struggling to overcome ongoing losses due mainly to troubled real estate loans.
The company announced it lost another $20 million in the last quarter of 2009.
The bank spokesperson says customers affected by the branch closures were notified about the changes.
She says other than having to move safe deposit boxes from Vandenberg Village to the Lompoc branch, customers will not notice any other changes in service.
The Santa Barbara Bank and Trust branch in Los Olivos will remain open.
The banking company says no decisions have been made about its other branches on the Central Coast.
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