Posted on 03/13/2015 10:44:44 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Marin has always been one of those picture-perfect areas that can do no wrong.
Until now.
Like many other Yelpers/commuters, we, too, are both puzzled and a little pissed about how much this Sausalito gas station is charging drivers for a tank of gasoline.
We contacted Bridgeway Gas Station a few times to find out what's up with the increased prices, but nobody will pick up the phone over there. So we turned to oil price expert Severin Borenstein who confirms that this certainly is a way to not sell gasoline.
"Obviously, he isn't planning on selling much gasoline and when he does, he sells to people desperate and not paying attention," says Borenstein, director of the University of California Energy Institute. "But this is not a viable strategy for keeping a gas station open."
Usually, when gas stations do jack up prices to surreal amounts, it has more to do with gas stations being at odds with refineries over wholesale pricing. But a Bridgeway isn't a branded gas station, thus it's more than likely getting its gas on the spot market and not paying high prices for it, Borenstein tells us.
That leaves Borenstein equally as baffled by this business strategy. Could it be a way to hose tourists passing through? "Even tourist will skip it at that price. So then why are you in the gasoline business at all? Boresntein says. "Maybe he won't be for long."
Probably not, with 1-star reviews like these:
Capitalism, bitches.
occasionally, there is a gas station owner that would prefer to just do mechanical repair work...and not bother with the gas pumps.
(sometimes his business permit says it is for a gasoline station so he doesn’t remove the pumps, and sometimes he doesn’t remove the pumps because that might raise the issue of having to remove the underground tanks and California
state government has been (protecting the BIG OIL companies mostly by) requiring this be done (mostly at smaller off brand stations)... and they can’t usually afford it (what with all the additional extra environmental testing and reporting California requires)
so anyway, there can be reasons for a gas station, particularly in California and especially an offbrand outlet) to do this. The profit on the shop end can be higher than out at the pumps anyway.
I take it the dude in the Camaro just stopped there to pick up some Slim Jims ?
You are 100 percent correct.
plus the fact that this little village is a notoriously over-priced tourist trap to begin with
Must be ... ain’t no garage there, neither.
No signs, nothing designed to draw people in. Looks like a “club” to me.
Marin County...has the highest population density of psychologists in the world....
This seems to be the most reasonable explanation.
That’s funny, just last weekend I was in Sausalito and walked by this station. A local teen was standing on the corner and I asked him is this a joke? What gives? The kid said it’s not a joke and that “the owner is just an a$$hole.” I go, “well, I guess all the rich Marin folks just pay it,” and he said, no, basically no one buys gas there. Instead, he said, all the locals believe the station is just a front for something else so the owner doesn’t care about selling gas, and doesn’t really want to be bothered with it, because he’s making his real money in other ways. Don’t know if that’s true (that the place is just a front), but it is true that the teen said that’s what the locals think.
it has to be ... because obviously his volume of gasoline sales is asymptotic to zero
Oh, that reminds me. Next time you go by there, can you pick up a “package” for me?
Or Japanese tourists who want to brag how much they paid?
I would get the premium. Only 2 cents more than regular!
There is a furniture store in our town where the help, one person, never waits on anyone. Stays on the phone til you leave. Some people have spent an hour waiting and they never get off the phone. If you try to talk to them they just wave you off. They never sell furniture.
So we’ve come to the rather obvious conclusion that its a front for something else. There is a big warehouse in back.
Buy ten gallons and you get a free lube job.
maybe but probably not, as the Japanese are used to pay $7 a gallon, plus or minus in Japan anyway
I don't know about Marin County, but I can tell you that around here there is essentially no money to be made in the retail gas business. That's why every gas station sells lottery tickets, tobacco products and snacks. That's where they actually make their money.
It's also the answer to the dumbass Bill 0'Reilly's perennial question: "Why do gas stations suddenly start charging more when the price of oil goes up? It can't possibly be affecting what the gas cost them to buy." The answer is: their margin is so small on retail gasoline sales that they will not be able to fill their tanks next week if they don't start charging next week's price right now.
And then they wait a month to lower it at all.
So, there's a downside to buying a newer vehicle...
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