Not-So-Thrifty Gas

LAist featured photographer Marshall Astor took this photo of a not-so-thrifty gas (4.76 for unleaded plus!) at a "Thrifty" gas station in San Pedro, near Los Angeles harbor:

This gas station's prices have gone nuts, but every time I drive by, there's some moron at the pump getting gouged.

For reference, I paid $4.01 at a nearby station last week, and most other nearby stations are in the low $4.10-20 range.

I'm expecting this pump to hit $5.00 soon. I have no idea what's going on at this place.

Link to Marshall's photo - via LAist


In my town, people flock to the chain grocery, where you get 3 cents off by using your shopper card! What they don't realize is that a) the advertised price on the big signs is AFTER they take the three cents off for using your card, and b) even then it's still more expensive than the smaller neighborhood stations.
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You’ re lucky you don’t live in the Province of Saskatchewan, Canada, where it’s $5.40 a gallon everywhere. There are no such things as gas price wars here. Price fixing has been going on here for years, illegal, but overlooked.
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Marshall's missing the point that yes, last week you could find gas for $4.01 at quite a few places around southern California, but as of yesterday, I wasn't seeing gas any cheaper than $4.35 anywhere in LA. The price has jumped insanely in the past two weeks.
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Running out of gas, I was forced to pay $4.86 a gallon yesterday. Of course I didn't fill up the tank. Just enough to get me to the cheaper station - $4.38 a gallon.

Los Angeles
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I feel sorry for the man who works those pumps. You'd be surprised how many drivers take out their aggression over fuel prices on the station's attendant.
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It's funny how when it comes to gas prices this person is outraged that someone would pay so much for gas. However I bet he doesn't bat an eye when he pays for his $100+ new balance sneakers.
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I'm glad I live in Texas, where gas is usually a little lower than the other states. Regular still hasn't broken $4 in the parts I frequent. I would like to know why it went up 10 cents in just a couple of days a week or so ago, though (and more since then, of course).
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Lucky you! I would be happy having those low, low, low gas prices here - in Austria, unleaded gas (91 ROZ) is about EUR 1.30 per liter - that's about USD 7.52 a gallon...
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you guys have it so good.

here in london regular unleaded goes for 1.18 GBP per LITER at some stations. that's 4.47 GBP per gallon, which currently translates to 8.83 US dollars. this of course is before you drive into town and pay another 8 GBP congestion charge.

so stop whining. it's gonna get worse anyway.
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The best part is that the two cars in the photo are a truck and an SUV...

@ sofar: I doubt there is an "attendant," per se, probably a clerk inside the mini mart.
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I too am in England where according to the post from 'me' it's $8.83 a gallon, you Americans are going to have to get used to it, and think about driving economical cars, any vehical that does less than 35 miles to the gallon is inexcusable, it's pretty easy to get cars than do 50+ mpg, changing your car could in affect half the price of fuel, and help the environment too.
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Doesn't anyone remember in the mid 90s when the Clinton Administration said that Gas would be in the $5.00 per gallon range by 2010? (Note, I am not blaming Clinton for this, that would be silly) I do. Everyone laughed and said NO WAY..

Having said that, I wonder how they knew.

Of course the famous bumper stickers I've seen lately put direct blame on Bush. When I see those the only thing it says to me is, the person who put that on his or her bumper are pretty dense as to how the system works.
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