MEQUON, Wis. -- Hoping to convince oil companies to lower their prices, Harvey Pollack urged local residents not to buy gasoline last Thursday. Not even from him. The owner of Towne Market Mobil in Mequon, Wis., a suburb north of Milwaukee, shut down his pumps for 24 hours, hoping the act would be a first step toward a larger movement aimed at convincing oil companies that an angry public can wield economic clout.
He joins a small but growing list of gasoline sellers that recently have shuttered their fuel dispenserseither temporarily or permanentlyto [image-nocss] protest high gasoline prices.
Somebody out there is making money at these prices, but not me, Pollack told the Associated Press. So I just thought: What can I do to help the consumer?
He said he planned to open the station Friday with one gallon of regular unleaded gasoline selling for $3.39, down from $3.49, earning about 7 to 8 cents per gallon after he pays his costs and taxes.
The protest drew dozens of drivers to the station, AP said. Many pulled in, honked and gave Pollack the thumbs up as he stood outside. One woman in a green minivan rolled down her window and shouted Thank you!
Maria McClory of Cedarburg said she drove 10 miles out of her way to buy a diet soda from Pollack's station after seeing a story about the protest on a local TV station. I just wanted to support them and thank them for making a statement, McClory told AP.
Other drivers were more skeptical. Jeff Bensman of Mequon pulled in expecting to fill up his Honda sedan. He said he appreciated the protest but didn't think it would make much difference. Most other places are going to be open in the area, he told the news agency.
Jack Sobczak, general sales manager for Lakeside Oil Co., a contracted Mobil distributor that supplies Pollack's station, said Bensman was probably right: The demand will just move down the street to the next Mobil station.
Sobczak said his company sells several hundred million gallons of gasoline a year and wouldn't be affected much by a one-day protest.
I'm not sure it will accomplish a lot, he told AP.
Pollack and station general manager John Schwartz agreed on the pump shutdown last week after calls for a nationwide gasoline boycott largely went unheeded. E-mails and other Internet chatter had urged drivers not to buy gasoline on May 15 to unnerve oil giants. But the tactic fell flat as consumers compensated by buying more gasoline on other days.
The Mequon station sells about 3,500 gallons of gas a day, Pollack said. He estimated the station would lose only $1,500 on the protest because some losses in gasoline would be made up by people buying convenience store items or more gasoline on Friday.
Towne Market Mobil makes more money on sales from the c-store than at the pumps, Schwartz told AP, although he declined to discuss financial specifics.
Pollack said they have virtually no control over the price they charge for gasoline. The company usually makes 8 to 12 cents per gallon after credit card fees and simply tacks that premium onto whatever price suppliers charge.
The protest came as several Wisconsin stations announced they would no longer sell gasoline because they make little or no profit on it after they pay wholesalers, credit card fees and taxes. They said they would focus on auto repairs instead.
Jeff Curro, a Brookfield, Wis., Shell station owner who has been in business for 20 years, has turned off his pumps permanently. He shut them down last week when the price he was being asked to pay was just too much, reported the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
Including the wholesale cost of gasoline and other taxes and charges, he was being asked to pay $3.44 a gallon on Friday, a day when the competing stations down the street were selling gasoline for $3.47. Three cents a gallon doesn't cut it, Curro told the newspaper. It doesn't pay the bills.
Add to that the money he loses every time a motorist uses a credit card at the pump, and there was no reason to keep selling gasoline, he said.
The way I see it is, I'm doing all the work of providing the labor, the wages, the electricity, the lighting, the maintenance of the pumps, the repairs and the insurance, which is quite substantial, Curro said. I'm doing all the work, and somebody else is getting fat on me.
Curro has been thinking about shutting down his pumps for about a year, he told the paper, and he has complained to his supplier about prices. When he shut down his pumps, he was charging $3.59 a gallon, 12 cents higher than the competing stations nearby. Even at $3.59, I was making 15 cents, but I was still giving 10 of those cents to MasterCard, he said.
Earlier this month, a Ramsey, Minn., Shell station owner shut off his pumps during the May 15 boycott. I thought it's a good way to protest, not selling gasoline for 12 hours and to tell the people we are supporting them, he said. I thought it was my duty as a citizen to do my part.
The owners of an Anderson, Ala., station also protested high gasoline prices by participating in the event. The owners posted a sign telling customers not to buy gasoline. They were hoping that by boycotting the pumps there would be less money flowing into the oil industry, forcing them to lower prices. The owners said this boycott is for both the owners and the customer.
In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Hill's General Store in Perkins also turned off its gasoline pumps. Hopefully, maybe this will send a message to other people, the owner said. Write your congressman and senators, and let's get these people to do something.
And a Louisville, Ky., Marathon station owner said that he bagged his pumps because he did not want to be accused of price gouging.
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