Gas Station Owner Shuts Down Pumps in Protest

[Shibby]

http://www.rednova.com/news/display?...urce=r_science

Sep. 1--CORNWALL -- Walter Dethier, the proprietor of the Berkshire Country Store in Cornwall, didn't wake up Wednesday morning planning on making a one-man protest against rising gasoline prices.

It was the call he received from his gasoline broker, Red Oliver of Tuxis-Ohrs Fuel in Meriden, that pushed him over the edge.

"When Red told me that the wholesale price I would have to pay for a gallon of unleaded regular was $3.23, up from $2.77 the day before, I told him just to keep his gas," Dethier said. "As a protest for both my customers and for the small-business owner, I've decided to close my pumps until the price begins to fall."

Within an hour, Dethier had locked up the pumps in front of his picturesque, clapboard convenience store and affixed handmade signs on all of them. "WE WILL NOT SELL GAS," the signs informed Dethier's customers. "WILL NOT BANKRUPT CONSUMERS OR MERCHANT."

Dethier said his fuel broker explained that the overnight spike in his wholesale price was caused by gasoline futures traders worried about the impact of Hurricane Katrina on Gulf Coast refineries and oil rigs.

But Dethier can't believe that a 46-cent price increase, virtually overnight, can be explained away by hurricane damage.

"The gas they were trying to sell me this morning at this absurd price is sitting in a tank in New Haven," Dethier said. "It was refined months ago. Somebody spiked the price up for a reason. That's what I'm drawing attention to by shutting down my pumps.

"Hurricane Katrina is merely another excuse to justify somebody -- the wholesalers, the mercantile exchange, whoever -- making an illicit profit off the customers who know and trust me."

Dethier also said the 3 percent loss he suffers on all credit card transactions, and the high cost of maintaining bank credit to handle large commercial accounts at inflated prices, contributed to his decision to shut his pumps as a protest.

"When we were selling gas at $1.50 a gallon, we billed $10,000 to $12,000 a month to our regular business customers who have charge accounts," Dethier said. "Now, at over $3.00 a gallon, I'll be sending out monthly bills for $25,000. That's too much capital to have tied up at interest."

Kate Childs, a vice president at Tuxis-Ohrs, confirmed the price increases for independent stations such as Dethgier's and predicted that there will be more.

"I don't blame him for being frustrated, but the prices were raised for us, too," Childs said. "The middleman, the stations, the consumers, we are all victims of the same pricing."

Dethier believes that he can hold out indefinitely and sustain his store on the busy delicatessen business he does every morning and at lunchtime.

"I'm not budging on this, and will keep my pumps locked until the wholesale prices start dropping again," he said.

"Somebody has to make a statement and prove that this rising cycle of exorbitant prices can be broken."

:usausausa

[GearTripper]

bravo!