Buyers not flinching as gas prices play chicken
All Erica Rideau cares about is her glittering new prom dress, a deep cerulean blue with spaghetti straps, a dress no other girl at the Ontario High School prom will have because she bought this to-die-for dress at the Sherwood Mall in Downey. She doesn’t even glance at the prices at this Shell station across the street as she hands over $10 for gas. Her friend, Christina Pineda -- “my dress is hot pink” -- pops out of her gray convertible Suzuki and pumps a couple drops over 3.9 gallons of regular. That’s all $10 will buy here, because regular -- that’s 87 octane -- goes for $2.55 a gallon.
And you thought you had it bad.
This gas is so expensive that the station sits atop the “Highest Gas Prices in the Last 60 Hours” list on www.losangelesgasprices.com, a website run by gasbuddy.com and fueled by volunteer price-spotters who report on where the bargains are.
And where they aren’t.
“It’s pretty expensive,” Pineda says. “Much more than in Ontario,” where she says she pays $2.09 for regular.
She and Rideau prepare for the long ride home by stocking up with Cheetos, Mug root beer, Doritos and a Pepsi. As they’re about to pull out, Power 106 blasting hip-hopper Chingy, Vash Sar, a sales agent for AAA, pulls in. Sar, who is on his way back from Mission Viejo, is not here to fill up his gas-thrifty Acura CL. He’s here to buy a cold drink.
“I had to buy a second car. I have an Escalade. I get 12 miles to the gallon.... When I use air conditioning, I get about eight miles a gallon,” he says, explaining that his territory includes all of Orange and Los Angeles counties. “Even my co-worker had to buy a Tercel.”
Why does gas cost so much here, at the Ur Service Station near the intersection of Firestone Boulevard and Woodruff Avenue, when according to the Auto Club of Southern California the Los Angeles-Long Beach regional average for unleaded regular is $2.18?
“They increased the rent,” manager Ali Homsi says. “I guess there are many reasons.”
When customers fuss, he tells them to complain to Shell.
He changes those huge plastic numbers on the sign that advertises the bad news, and says something that anyone who drives a car knows: “The prices are getting higher.”
So high that the price of gas could become an issue even hotter than the Iraq war in the upcoming presidential election.
“At this point,” according to a poll released earlier this week by the Pew Research Center, “the spiraling price of gas may be overshadowing jobs on the public’s radar. Public attention to news about rising gas prices, already quite high, increased markedly in early April -- fully 58% paid very close attention to reports on the high price of gasoline, compared with 36% who followed the recent attacks on Americans in Iraq very closely.”
In Sacramento, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is not asleep at the wheel of his Hummer. He has asked Washington to temporarily waive federal regulations that require the most polluted areas, such as California, to use a cleaner and more expensive gas, blended with additives that reduce emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency is considering the governor’s request.
California drivers aren’t the only ones who need relief. Higher costs of crude oil keep pushing gas prices to record levels across the country. The national average is $1.78 per gallon for regular.
“On average, California has the most expensive gas,” says Jason Toews, co-founder of the nonprofit gasbuddy.com, which runs 170 local websites, a dozen in this state. “We’ve seen prices as high as $3.40, but that’s in rural Alaska.”
In suburban Minneapolis, where he lives -- and gets about 18 miles to the gallon in his Jeep Cherokee -- Toews cites a bargain $1.59 for a gallon of regular. “It’s even cheaper on the East Coast,” he adds. “We’ve had reports as low as $1.40.”
Relying on volunteers, his website tracks prices at 90,000 stations weekly. The Ur Service Station got singled out earlier this week when the price for regular was $2.46.
It’s even higher today.
Still, there are reasons to stop here.
“My fiance works for Shell,” Janet Gerges explains as she fills her silver Honda Accord.
Maria Alfaro, a housewife from Beale Air Force Base north of Sacramento who is spending Easter vacation with family in Downey, is running out of gas when she wheels her burgundy 2004 Honda Pilot into the station. “I’m paying and it hurts,” she says.
Would she buy another SUV today?
“Not with these prices,” she answers.
“Usually, all the places are the same,” says Luis Morones, who installs shelves at libraries for a living. “Everybody has to have gas,” he continues, as he fills his 2000 Honda Civic’s tank.
Between cars, when it’s slow, the manager talks on the phone, reads the paper and watches television. On this day he does a brisk business selling cigarettes, soda and other items to customers who shun his main product.
“I wouldn’t buy gas here,” says Amy Yingling, a retail sales manager who stops for chips on her way home to Montclair. “This is the highest I’ve ever seen it,” she says. “But I only have two more weeks. It’s too expensive ... I’m moving to Boise, Idaho.” (Where, according to www.boisegasprices.com, the highest price for regular is only $1.87.)
Marc Castanada, a sales rep for a steel company, stops his deep coral ’67 Ford Mustang, looks at the prices and says, “Good God! No way!” He says he tells his 10-year-old son Isaac, “I feel sorry for you and what you will have to pay for gas.”
That sentiment is not shared by Rudy Mendoza, a smog technician who stops at the station.
“It’s not that high. It’s going higher,” he says. “Gas used to be 20 cents [a gallon] 50 or 60 years ago.” Citing inflation, he believes the prices are about right. But Mendoza, of Huntington Park, was not filling the large tank of his Ford F-150. He was buying $2.36 worth for his motorcycle.
Parking at the pumps, James Tanner, owner of a real estate appraisal firm, decides not to buy here after all. He says he spends $600 a month for gas. “My wife has an Expedition. It costs $75 to fill up. I fill it up twice a week,” he says after getting an energy drink. His gas bill is now higher than his car payment.
OK, it’s bad. But not as bad as the ‘round-the-block gas lines of the ‘70s.
“What are you going to do? Either push it or drive it,” Joe Contreras says as he fills up his gold ’77 Corvette. “I’ve been through this before, when they were rationing gas.”
It hasn’t come to that. Yet.
Nor has it come to $3 a gallon, although the federal Department of Energy predicts higher prices during the summer driving season.
Meanwhile, an employee at the Ur station, who doesn’t want his name used, says conspiratorially that “a friend” says there’s a station with higher prices about six blocks from LAX.
He’s right.
At a Texaco at Century and Aviation boulevards, self-serve regular is up to $2.59. If you want someone to pump it for you, it’s 20 cents more.
