Its such an anachronism. I drove through NJ a couple years ago, and got berated by some guy when I unwittingly tried to pump my own gas.
Was it once a mafia racket that NJ politicians were trying to protect? If it was, it must have been a long time ago.
There is an urban legend that a political focus group once reported such a strong bias against self-service in NJ that no politician dared tackle the issue.
Had the same problems over the years when I was there. It’s nothing but graft and greed designed to drive up prices to give some foreign putz a job...
Same thing in Oregon. I was on a rare visit there about 8 years ago and some stranger walks up and starts trying to pump my gas at a convenience store. Looked like a homeless guy. I let him do it out of courtesy. Later learned that that’s the LAW there.
What a strange state.
Same thing happened to me on a business trip a while back. I stopped to top off the rental car and just jumped out and started to fill up. The attendant went berserk and very nearly called the police on me. I couldn’t help it and just laughed at the guy.
Got self serve gas yesterday in Ca.
The pump had a warning:
‘don’t dwell in the area of pumps
due to cancer causing vapors”
I heard it was a jobs program for high school drops and third world immigrants.