Mario Farw and his mother, Rosa Paliotta, wait at the Registry office in West Warwick yesterday.

The Providence Journal / Frieda Squires

WEST WARWICK — The wait time at the Registry of Motor Vehicles office here yesterday was about an hour and a half in the early afternoon. But you didn’t need a ticket to tell you that.

The blond wooden benches lining one wall were spotted with people reading books, chatting on cell phones or just sitting staring into space. Some men paced and read the signs on the scuffed rose-colored walls. Everywhere you looked, it seemed, someone was waiting for the automated voice to call their number over the loudspeaker: “Now serving 631 at window four.”

Next month, the state will close the Registry branches in West Warwick and Westerly as it looks for ways to trim its budget.

The move, said Governor Carcieri’s spokeswoman, Amy Kempe, will save roughly $150,000 in direct costs such as rent and utilities, and save the Division of Motor Vehicles from having to fill vacancies left by retirements.

“These are difficult fiscal times for [the state],” she said. “Every penny counts and $150,000 in savings to the state counts [as] a lot of pennies.”

The four West Warwick employees will be reassigned to the Pawtucket office full-time. The two Westerly employees will divide their time between the Registry offices in Wakefield, which are open only on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and in Pawtucket. Roughly 300,000 transactions are completed each year at the main office in Pawtucket, though the number of visitors may be fewer than that. Officials said adding more employees to the Pawtucket office is expected to decrease waiting times overall. In addition to Pawtucket and Wakefield, the Registry has offices in Middletown, Warren, Warwick (an express location at the Rhode Island Mall) and Woonsocket.

Some of those offices are open only limited hours and provide limited services, however.

“The DMV is committed to providing solid customer service to our clients,” Sally Strachan, agency administrator, said in a news release. “The consolidation of staff into fewer locations allows us to cover transactions efficiently at our busier locations.”

Some customers aren’t so sure.

Mario Farw sat in one of the wooden benches with his head in his hands yesterday. He had already been waiting with his mother, Rosa Paliotta, of Johnston, for an hour to register a truck. They would wait at least 45 minutes longer before their number would be called.

“Now serving 634 at window three.”

“They’re going to take all of these overpopulated places and mix them into one, and it’s going to be a disaster,” Farw said. “We’ve been sitting here for God knows how long for 30 people to go by. … They say it’s going to save aggravation, but it makes it worse by far.”

Talk that the West Warwick branch would close has circulated in town for years as the branch had been put on — and taken off — the chopping block in the past.

Most recently, the branch was targeted in the governor’s fiscal 2009 budget and was slated to close this summer until last-minute legislative maneuvering saved it.

The Registry has leased space at 1237 Main St. for the last 17 years, switching last year to a month-to-month lease with N&M Properties, the real estate company owned by state Sen.-elect Michael J. Pinga. In October, the office began closing on Fridays.

“This whole location is obsolete,” said Chip Wade, of Warwick, as he filled out paperwork to reregister his truck. “With the new housing complex in the back, there’s no more parking, there’s no place for a license test. It should be closed down.”

Besides, he joked, it gives him a chance to take a leisurely drive north: “You ever been to scenic Pawtucket?”

“Now serving 099 at window seven.”

Not everyone is taking the closing so lightly.

Michael D. Ferrucci owns Ferrucci’s New York System eatery across the street from the Registry. When people find it will be more than an hour’s wait to be seen, they often head over to Ferrucci’s to grab breakfast or lunch, he said.

Ferrucci couldn’t guess how many people wander into his shop from the Registry but said the departure would definitely hurt business.

“You go to the Registry and you’ve got an hour to kill,” Ferrucci said. “If it’s summertime, you get something to drink, maybe get a hot dog, walk over to the bakery, get a doughboy, go have a cigarette, go to the jewelry store and buy a diamond ring. [Closing the Registry] is bad for business, and we’re definitely in a recession.

“All of the businesses around think it’s a bad move on the government’s part,” he said. “They’re not thinking of the people. … I don’t think it’s good, but, that’s Rhode Island.”

tbuford@projo.com