Actually, they do have branches in New York, Moe, although the LI ones appear to be in western LI:
http://bank.commerceonline.com/information/branch_locations/index.cfm
Ok, you’re a cheapskate, cheapskate, CHEAPSKATE!! 
I knew this thread would get into this at some point. Some people will simply go to their graves believing that certain things should be free. TV, tire air at a gas station, cashing in coins etc.
In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, “Hey, you don’t like it, move to Russia!” Nothing is inherently free. Time is money. I take a coffee can full of coins to Stop & Shop, dump them into the Coinstar and walk away with about $270. If it weren’t for Coinstar I would NOT be getting $295, I’d be getting nothing because it would still be sitting on my shelf! 
1/2 the ‘fee’ for the coinstar machines here go to charity, so someone benifits from the charge other than the owners/operators. We give pots of change to our grandchildren to throw in the machines, amuses them to death and they get ‘paid’ pocket money to boot. The cost is minimal, the amusement high.
(liberally snipped, italics mine)
Sure, nothing is inherently free. And capitalism is what made this country great. Whoever came up with the idea for the Coinstar machines in probably rolling in dough, literally. Or maybe coins.
And I will go to my grave believing that charging 50 freaking cents to turn on the air compressor so I can put frigging air in my tires is highway robbery.
And I’m not a cheapskate, I’m frugal. 
MUSHROOM! MUSHROOM!
Same here in Minnesota – just take the coins to the teller & they’ll use their machine to sort & count them. But on a real busy day, like the 1st of the month or something, they may ask you to wait or to come back later.
I believe some banks have tried to charge for this; they were promptly told by their Minnesota customers where to go (or rather, where their customers would go with their accounts). They pretty much all stopped that, though some banks still charge their commercial customers for counting coins. Guess they just don’t complain loudly enough.
Pay someone with lots of free time (that guy that does nothing but play online games or playstation) %5 to roll them for you. Works for me. I hand him the jar, and he gives me the cash minus his cut about an hour later. Obviously YMMV. This is for those of us with no free credit union, lazy friends, and an aversion to making a special trip for such things.
I have a simpler solution than any of you: I spend coins about as fast as I receive them. I carry a small supply of coins with me and that’s all – no big stash at home. Whenever it’s convenient – I’m not in a huge rush, and there’s nobody waiting impatiently after me – I pay for some of my purchase with coins. Anyway, I’ve practiced this for so many years that it takes just a few seconds for me to select the coins I want to pay with. The result is that a have a fairly steady number of coins.
Ed
Oh, you’re right - that’s much simpler, suranyi! Just spend all the money you have!
It’s so simple, it just might work!
Well, just in case you’re serious, obviously I don’t carry around with me ALL of my money. Just all of my coins, which rarely amounts to more than a couple of dollars, plus whatever cash in bills I feel I need for the day.
Ed
Yes, but if you’re going out of your way to spend your coins just to get rid of them, you’re worse off (depending on your perspective) than if you saved it and bought something of value to you.
Commerce bank does indeed have a non-fee coin counter…they call it the Penny Arcade…counts your coins, and spits out a reciept you can hand the bank teller for a transaction.
Yes, we know, Enola - mentioned it a couple times in this thread. 
Ah…um…yeah.
TCF Bank in the Twin Cities now has self-service coin-counting machines. You can use them for free if you have an account there–if you don’t, they take a (IIRC) 5% “convenience” fee.
I’ve never seen a Coinstar machine…it looks like TCF beat them to it in this market.
That’s true, but I already save something like 40% of my salary so it’s not like this would make that big a difference.
Ed
You save 40% of your salary… how?
Well, I’ve always been a good saver – saving at least 5-10% of my income was normal all my life. But over the last decade I’ve been fortunate enough to have my salary essentially double during the tech boom of the 90s, while my living expenses only increased slowly. (In fact, some have decreased. I’ve refinanced my mortgage, lowering my monthly housing costs.)
So far, I’ve managed to keep my big salary increases from the late 90s. I’ve survived several rounds of layoffs at my company and I appear to be safe for the time being. But one never knows, and that’s a reason that I HAVEN’T increased my living expenses as my salary increased. I’m too afraid this is temporary. But for the time being, by savings rate is very high.
But we’re way off topic now.
Ed
But that doesn’t have anything to do with your walking-around money, at least not directly.
You’re saying you’re already saving quite a bit, and that’s fine - but you’re probably the exception, not the rule. Most people don’t save 40% of their salary. Therefore for them it’s prudent to hang on to the change (toss it in a jar, sort it in a machine, wrap it in rolls, etc.) and then cash it in for something later, rather than just getting rid of it at the first opportunity.
That’s fine, by no means was I saying that I was right and everyone else is wrong. I was just saying what works for me. I don’t like to keep large stashes of coins, nor do I have a reason to do so. It does mean that I don’t have to worry about what CoinStar charges, which leads back to the topic of this discussion.
There are many strategies that can be used to encourage saving, and you proposed one that does work for lots of people. As I said in my previous message, I use other strategies.
Ed