Gas sellers suggest ways to cut prices

Group urges tough theft penalties, lower fees for credit cards

Gas station owners feel your pain.

At a State House hearing yesterday to address soaring pump prices, gas station owners urged Massachusetts legislative leaders to take a serious look at two ideas: lower credit card fees and tougher penalties for gas thieves.

Twenty-six other states make ”drive-off” gas theft a serious crime punishable by license revocation or $500 fines. Stealing gas by driving away without paying is treated as any other shoplifting misdemeanor under Bay State law, said Paul F. O’Connell, who owns an Exxon station in Lunenburg and is a spokesman for the New England Service Station and Automotive Repair Association. A national convenience store chain estimated that $500 million worth of gasoline was stolen nationwide by drive-off thieves in 2004, and that could easily hit $1 billion this year, O’Connell predicted.

Drive-off theft winds up costing consumers because station owners have to raise prices to recoup losses. But O’Connell would not predict how much a Massachusetts antidrive-off law could reduce pump prices. Also, his group doesn’t know how many of the 2,700 Massachusetts stations still let people pump before paying or swiping a credit card.

Boston Globe