by Lisa M. Chmiola
Managing Editor
If you attended the first day of summer classes Tuesday, chances are you stopped by the University of Houston Bookstore to purchase those shiny new textbooks as part of your class requirements.
And chances are, if you had a backpack or book bag, you had to wait in line at the University Center to check that bag before entering the store.
But this was no ordinary line - at times it stretched through the door of the bookstore and around the corner of the UC.
"The line was halfway down the ramp of the UC," said Brenda Johnson, a senior psychology and history major who works in the UC's information center. "It pretty much wrapped all the way around the bookstore."
Some students in line said they waited almost 30 minutes to enter the store.
"(We're in line) to drop off our bags," said junior business major Niki Mancha, who had waited 20 minutes to enter the store. "I haven't even shopped yet."
Mancha and junior pre-pharmacy major Rebecca Yim said they often switched places to run errands elsewhere in the UC.
"It's just hot," Yim said.
Mancha agreed, saying, "It wouldn't be so bad if the line was inside."
Although the line began inside at the customer service desk, few customers could fit inside and most were left waiting outside.
Though the package check-in desks are usually located at the entrances of the UC at the beginning of a semester, General Manager Lynda Radisi said the bookstore staff decided to move them inside due to the summer heat.
Loren Charter, a post-baccalaureate student studying education, said he had been waiting in line for about five minutes.
"It's the first day of class. I wasn't expecting (a line)," Charter said.
Bag check-in is UH Bookstore policy, according to Radisi, to prevent customers from shoplifting items.
"It's a security situation," she said, adding that it prevents someone from carrying in a bag and putting items in it without paying for them.
Radisi added that the store only has about 100 numbered slots to leave packages that are checked in. She said the holdup was due to students having to wait for other students to leave the store, opening up slots for new bags.