In order to reduce fuel consumption and pollution caused by idling vehicles, the City of Ashland in 1982 discouraged businesses from using drive-up windows. Two years later, a city ordinance prohibited the construction of new drive-up windows and placed a limit on the number that could exist in the city. A grandfather clause allowed businesses that already had drive-up windows to continue using them.
One of these businesses was the Richmaid Ice Cream Shop on Siskiyou Boulevard near the Presbyterian Church. Long time Ashland resident Angela Greene remembers working there after school as a teenager in 1985. She and several friends from Ashland High School served 24 flavors of ice cream and attended a drive-through window. They earned $3.15 an hour. When bicycle-riding classmates attempted to order at the drive-up window, the manager reminded Angela that only cars were allowed.
The Richmaid Ice cream shop became a take-out food operation in the 1990s before the building, with its drive-up window, was demolished in 1999.
Today, a two-story stucco building stands on the site. Angela Greene is again working there, but this time as director of a preschool.
Sources: Greene , Angela. Personal interview. 22 May 2014; "Ordinance #3074." City of Ashland. Web. 22 May 2014.
