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Sheriff wants drivers to pay before pumping

The Hillsborough Sheriff's Office asks commissioners to require prepaying at gas stations to prevent drive-offs.

By BILL VARIAN and ELISABETH DYER
Published September 8, 2005

TAMPA - Most gas stations have long since stopped letting customers pay after they pump.

Now the Hillsborough County sheriff wants to make prepaying the law.

With the painful spike in gas prices pushing even cheap grades to about $3 a gallon, there has been a sharp increase in drive-offs at stations that don't require prepaying. That translates into big-bucks losses for gas station operators, along with time spent by law enforcement officers writing reports instead of responding to other crimes.

"With the gas prices going up and up, it's a no-brainer," said Maj. Paul Davis, who overseas the sheriff's District 2 office that covers eastern Hillsborough County. "It's such a preventable crime. It's an opportunity we want to remove."

Davis, speaking on behalf of Sheriff David Gee, asked Hillsborough commissioners Wednesday to require prepaying. The board told the county attorney's office to work with the sheriff to draw up an ordinance that can be considered at a public hearing.

Though such a law could appear to interfere with how station operators choose to run their businesses, Davis said drive-offs result in a diversion of valuable law enforcement manpower.

"We're spending hundreds of hours responding to these calls," he said.

Also, he said, the thieves can pose a threat as they peel out from gas stations, sometimes crossing lanes of traffic to get away.

The ordinance would apply only in unincorporated parts of the county, making Hillsborough one of the first major governments in the region to consider requiring people to prepay for gas. Pinellas Park requires prepayment after 8 p.m.

Tampa police have not discussed the idea, and neither has the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.

The advent of pumps that take credit cards and the general trend by gas station operators to require prepayment have led to steady declines in drive-offs in recent years.

In Hillsborough County, for instance, sheriff's deputies received 3,011 calls reporting gas scofflaws in 1999, but only 1,067 last year.

But the number has climbed this year, with a recent spike evident. In June, deputies received 71 calls. In August, 139.

And those are just the reported calls. Many stores don't report the thefts unless someone manages to get a license plate number.

Maged Moussa, owner of a Chevron gas station on E Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Seffner, requires customers to prepay if they use the pumps farthest from the store that are hardest to keep an eye on. People still speed off. And now, a financial hit that used to be $20 to $25 is closer to $50, with the thieves often choosing a premium grade, he said.

So you'd think he'd support the idea. He's not so sure, though.

Some of his customers are disabled, and he doubts competitors would follow the law. If he chose not to, he wonders whether deputies just wouldn't respond and whether he would have to "eat the loss."

Dawn Drake, a manager at the nearby RaceTrac Petroleum on E King Boulevard, said she welcomes the idea. By corporate policy, RaceTrac doesn't require customers to prepay as a convenience.

As a three-year employee, however, Drake takes drive-offs personally, even if she's not responsible for the loss. She reports a drive-off if she sees a tag number, but she isn't allowed to chase people to get it.

"It's annoying because you take it personally when it's on your shift," Drake said. Indeed, RaceTrac stores account for a good number of Sheriff's Office calls. Another of its stores on King Boulevard reported 68 drive-offs from January 2004 to July 2005, compared to none for a Country Foods Store a third of a mile away, which has a prepay policy.

A RaceTrac on E Bloomingdale Avenue reported 69 drive-offs in that period. The 7-Eleven up the street that requires prepaying reported nine.

Staff writer Saundra Amrhein contributed to this report.

[Last modified September 8, 2005, 01:50:14]