Exxon Tells 9 Franchisees to Vacate Stations : Energy: The company, under court order to renew leases until a 1993 trial of operators’ lawsuit, tries a new tack.

The bitter end-game between Exxon Corp. and its Southern California dealers has taken another twist. The nation’s largest oil company, which plans to withdraw from the California market, has told nine service station operators that their franchises will not be renewed, and to vacate their leased facilities.

Exxon delivered letters to the service station operators on Nov. 27, saying that an Exxon representative would take possession of their stations Nov. 30. The nine dealers obtained an order from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals barring Exxon from retaking the stations until the court can decide on the dealers’ request for an injunction to maintain the franchises, a decision expected next week.

Forty operators of the 156 Exxon service stations in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties have sued the company over disputes arising from its decision to abandon its tiny 3.4% share of the Southern California gasoline market. The suit charges that Exxon has inflated the prices it is asking of operators who want to buy their stations, is attempting to evade liability for pollution at station sites and illegally restraining competition.

“They want us to get out of the lawsuit,” Chuck Yee, operator of World Exxon Service in Eagle Rock, said Friday. Yee is one of the operators denied a franchise renewal.

Exxon is under court order to renew leases to station owners until the Oct. 19, 1993, trial of the lawsuit. But Exxon, in the Nov. 9 court order by Federal District Judge Robert M. Takasugi, was not required to renew franchises that end before the trial.

The dealers, many of whom say they want to buy their stations and remain in business selling other brands, say that Exxon is harassing them even as it says it is willing to sell them the stations.

One complaint is that banks are unwilling to lend operators the money to buy their stations until all leaked gasoline is removed around the stations’ underground tanks, a common problem in the industry. But the operators say Exxon won’t pay for this pollution cleanup--even though it owns the stations--until after the operators buy them.

“We allege they are put in a Catch-22 on purpose,” said Joseph M. Alioto, a San Francisco attorney who represents the dealers, “so that all those stations will be shut down.”

The dealers have charged that such withdrawals by various oil companies across the country violate federal antitrust laws by reducing competition.