Most people who enter the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office are picking up a loved one’s belongings or an autopsy report.

But then there are those just looking for a beach towel with the chalk outline of a dead body.

New managers at the coroner’s headquarters near Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center are re-evaluating its tongue-in-cheek gift shop, which is steps away from where grieving families come to do business with the coroner.

“It’s a fine line that you’re walking,” said coroner spokesman Craig Harvey.

Coroner officials have discussed turning the famed Skeletons in the Closet gift shop into more of a museum, or “Forensic Education Center,” with some merchandise. Closing the store is also an option as well as relocating it to somewhere with more foot traffic, Harvey said.

The final decision will rest with Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner Dr. Mark Fajardo.

The shop is tucked off the lobby of the red brick and gray stone building at 1104 N. Mission Road that formerly housed the county hospital. The merchandise is stored on tall bookshelves decorated with black netting, yellow crime scene tape and small plastic skeletons. The shop isn’t visible from the lobby and is only marked by a small placard above the door frame that reads: “Gift Shop.” A sign in the lobby reminds potentially eager shoppers to be mindful of the coroner’s other customers: “Please be considerate of our families here on business.”

The place appeals to those whose sense of humor tends to the morbid. It specializes in gag gifts such as a “party” black nylon body bag, which can be worn as a costume and sells for $18, the $35 beach towels and a BBQ apron for $19.75 with the drawing of a spare set of ribs and an extra set of hands. It also appeals to those who want to sport the same L.A. County Coroner T-shirts, hoodies, hats and jackets worn by some coroner’s employees.

Shopkeeper Edna Pereyda said she knows of only one other coroner operating a gift shop in the country: the Clark County Coroner in Las Vegas.

It’s not a moneymaker for the county. Pereyda, who’s been there for a decade, said she generates about $2,000 to $3,000 a week from in-store and online sales, but that doubles and triples during Halloween and Christmas. An audit of the coroner’s department found that in 2010 the store operated at an annual loss of $55,000. Any profits were supposed to go to a program for youth drunken driving awareness, but instead that program was supplementing the cost to run the store, the 2010 audit showed.

Harvey said the gift shop hasn’t been given the chance to thrive because county governments are not set up to run businesses. It’s limited in how much stock it can carry, and it doesn’t advertise.

“The truth is the store is a plus for us from a (public relations) perspective,” Harvey said, “so people have some idea of what this county office does for them.

“I think that we need to let the store try to make its way, and if the store cannot make its way, then let’s try to change the focus.”

The store draws tourists from around the nation as well as Europe, Australia and Asia, some of whom send Pereyda postcards and teddy bears when they return home. It’s the penultimate stop on a Michael Jackson tour for Japanese tourists. Hospital employees and law enforcement are regular customers.

Pereyda is conscious of respecting families who are at the coroner’s office for another reason than to shop at her store. She doesn’t go wild with Halloween decorations that might disturb some people.

But life is too short to be serious, Pereyda said. She is supportive of change as long as it’s for the right reasons.

“We’re not making fun of anybody,” Pereyda said.

Andy Haskins of Burbank immediately felt the conflicting atmosphere of the lobby as he visited the gift shop with his wife and two children.

“There are people crying out there,” he said. “It’s weird to be laughing and having fun in here.”

The Haskins’ mixed feelings didn’t prevent them from leaving with a bag full of items. Bee Haskins, 19, wondered aloud how she would explain the practical applications of a body bag to justify buying it, but then she concluded, “There are a lot of ways you can freak somebody out with something like that. I definitely like the fact they have something like this available for people with different curiosities.”

The shop opened in 1993 as a joke. A clerk made a humorous T-shirt for one of the physicians at the hospital next door and once the director of the coroner’s office heard about it, a new business was born.

“It was intended to plug into the cachet of the Los Angeles County coroner who has played an important role in the history of what makes Los Angeles, Los Angeles — the noir, the Raymond Chandler novels,” Harvey said.

The lore around the L.A. County Coroner’s Office was cemented with former coroner Dr. Thomas Noguchi, who achieved “rock star” status during investigations into high-profile cases including Natalie Wood, Robert F. Kennedy, journalist Ruben Salazar and Marilyn Monroe, said L.A. cultural historian Richard Schave. Noguchi, who was known as “coroner to the stars,” served from 1967 to 1987.

Schave hopes the coroner’s office will use the discussion about revamping the gift shop to tap into its history.

“The body outline beach towels? I think it is in poor taste,” he said. “Even the most basic branding based on some history of the place — everyone would love it.”

Pereyda disputed whether the gift shop clashes with the sensitive nature of the coroner’s business. She has seen grieving family members also become customers.

Pereyda remembered one woman who was collecting a relative’s belongings. She ended up in the store in front of a T-shirt with a detached foot.

“How can you have a foot from a dead body on a shirt?” the woman yelled. Just then her phone rang. She told the caller she was in the gift shop, paused, then retorted: “No, I’m not going to buy you a beanie.”

The woman left, but 15 minutes later she returned to buy the beanie.

Recalled Pereyda: “I said, ‘It’s nice to see you back.’”