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You must pay before you pump

Higher prices bring more driveoffs. And deputies were tied up investigating thefts in unincorporated areas.

By JUSTIN GEORGE and BILL VARIAN
Published October 6, 2005

TAMPA - Be prepared to pay before you pump if you plan to fill up the gas tank in unincorporated Hillsborough County any time soon.

With fuel prices climbing skyward, Hillsborough commissioners voted unanimously to require that gas stations insist on prepayment, so that deputies don't have to investigate so many complaints of gas theft.

The vote came after a public hearing Wednesday, though no one asked to address commissioners about the proposal. Commissioners voted without comment.

Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee asked for the policy after his staff documented that the 1,104 driveoffs reported through August were already ahead of the full-year total for 2004. Calls jumped from 71 in June to 139 in August.

Two to three times a day, the Racetrack gas station at 10108 Gibsonton Drive loses about $70 after someone drives off with a full tank. The station does not require prepayment, and owner Vinay Kaushal said rising gas prices are making people more desperate.

"I like it," Kaushal said of the law. "It will help."

Many gas stations already require prepayment, at least at night, and they report far fewer driveoffs as a result, sheriff's records show. Each call takes deputies away from more serious crimes.

The Marathon station on Cross Creek Boulevard already requires nighttime prepayment, and owner Kim Stanley had mixed feelings about making everyone do it all the time.

"If I'm a customer, do I like it?" she said. "No."

But at the same she said she needs to pump a few hundred gallons of gas to make up for someone driving off with $60 of fuel, given her profit margins lately are about 5 cents a gallon.

"That's the story of the gas business," she said.

Her station experiences about three driveoffs every 40 days - relatively few, Stanley said - and that's why she is lukewarm about the law. Construction workers and seniors, in particular, like to pay cash and don't like to pay up front.

Making everyone prepay could cost her station more in credit card transaction fees, she said, because people would be more likely to use plastic.

"So that's less money," Stanley said.

[Last modified October 6, 2005, 01:13:15]