Radio Station Promotion : Here’s a Dime for the Gas--Keep the Change

Dan Van Slogteren and his wife, Winnie, waited in line for four hours Friday for the chance to fill their mobile home’s 100-gallon gas tank at a Diamond Bar service station.

At normal prices, that would be about a $100 investment, but thanks to a gas war sparked by a Los Angeles radio station contest, the Slogterens forked out only a dime.

For the retired couple from Rowland Heights, a suburb 30 miles east of downtown, the promotion was a boon. They plan to leave home on a cross-country trip April 1 and gas prices are an obvious concern.

“This should get us to New Mexico,” Winnie Van Slogteren said.

The gas war was triggered by an offer by KIIS-FM to give $1,000 and a trip for two to Hawaii, among other prizes, to the owner of the station that offered the lowest prices for 24 hours.

Pennies Per Tank

Some Southland service stations dropped prices for regular and unleaded gas to ridiculously low prices--to one-tenth of a cent for regular fuel at the Diamond Bar station and to nine-tenths of a cent for unleaded at an independent station in Santa Monica.

Response was so great that KIIS deejay Rick Dees, who dreamed up the contest, gave away cash to the top three stations, including the grand prize winner, Diamond Bar Shell Tire & Auto Center, the Garden Grove Mobil station and Canyon Service in Santa Monica.

In Diamond Bar, traffic had to be rerouted onto a side street because of a mile-long line of motorists waiting to fill their tanks, while drivers in Santa Monica and Garden Grove also waited up to four hours for their chance at the pump.

“A customer came in this morning and told me I ought to put in a bid for the lowest-priced gas,” said Jeff Gottlieb, owner of the Santa Monica station. “So I called up Rick Dees and told him I’d sell it at nine-tenths (of a cent) until it ran out.”

Gottlieb, who noted he would take only a $500 loss on the day after receiving his prize money, said he didn’t mind finishing third: “The lowest bid was one-tenth per gallon. I’ll play the game, but I wasn’t going to give it away!”

But George Benitez, owner of the winning Diamond Bar station, didn’t mind giving it away for next to nothing. In fact, he said, the $20,000 loss he might take for participating would be worth it.

“I was determined to win,” Benitez said, “but I didn’t think it would be anything like this.”

Benitez won the contest by selling his regular gas for one-tenth of a cent, but a short time later he cut the price to one-thousandth of a cent per gallon to avoid dealing with the pennies. By afternoon, he was advising customers to fill up and forget about paying.

Dees, the driving force, as it were, behind Friday’s antics, was amazed at the effect of his station’s promotion.

He first announced the promotional contest over the air Monday. First to call was a Mobil station in Long Beach, which cut its bid price to 78.9 cents for regular. By Tuesday, the bid price had fallen to 59.9 cents at several stations. By Friday morning, it was 5.9 cents, and by 10 a.m. Friday, the cutoff, the price was a tenth of a cent per gallon.

Ten Gallons for a Dime

“Can you imagine, you give this guy a dime and say, ‘Give me 10 gallons of regular,’ and he gives you back nine cents?” Dees said after hearing of the success of his actions. “I think we’re in the twilight zone.”

The way some motorists were reacting to the prices Friday, Dees wasn’t far off.

“I almost ran out of gas getting here,” said 26-year-old Lawndale resident Danny Roque of his 40-minute trip to Santa Monica. “I just refused to stop. I would have pushed my car into the station.”

Longtime Santa Monica resident, 83-year-old Joaquin de la Pena, said he had never seen prices so low in all his driving years--starting in 1924. Then again, when he was young, De la Pena said, gas wasn’t a concern at any price: “We had a horse and buggy then.”

Times staff writers Alan Maltun in Los Angeles and Steve Emmons in Orange County contributed to this story.