Gas drive-offs on the rise
Bob Von Sternberg, Star Tribune
After 43 years in the service station business, Tom Sipe has learned to accept brazen gasoline thefts as just another unwanted fact of life.
But this is getting ridiculous.
"It used to be you'd get a few each year, but I've been hit twice in the past two days," said Sipe, who operates a gas station on W. Broadway in Robbinsdale. "One of the guys, in a [GMC] Denali, has managed to hit us three times now, and we haven't been able to catch him. It's gotten blatant. It's not a good situation."
It will come as scant comfort to Sipe, but he's got a lot of company as gasoline prices spike ever higher. Such surges go hand in hand with what are known as "drive-offs," and are now giving the service station industry fits.
"It's really misdirected anger -- pump rage -- a sense that someone needs to account for the pain this is causing," said Jeff Lenard, a spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores.
"You can't go after OPEC for the prices they charge, or the states or the feds for the gas tax, so the only one people can send a message to is the retailer," he said. "And this is no Robin Hood thing, stealing from the rich to give to the poor."
Many Twin Cities stations were charging $2.69 a gallon Monday; one in North St. Paul was up to $3.02.
The increasing incidence of drive-offs isn't merely anecdotal, such as the case of a St. Paul gas station attendant critically injured last month when he jumped on a hood of a car to stop its driver from fleeing.
The association, which represents 110,000 convenience stores selling gas nationwide (2,229 of them in Minnesota) calculates that drive-offs cost the industry about $237 million last year, up from $112 million in 2003. The 2004 total represented an average loss per store of $2,141 and the association estimates that one of every 1,100 fill-ups is a drive-off.
"Take the guy in the Denali," Sipe said. "He got away with $45 worth of gas. The way this is going, if I'm getting a few a week, it could add up to $3,000, $4,000 by the end of the year. That's a tough way to make a living."
The 500 gasoline retailers who belong to the Minnesota Service Station Association are reporting monthly cumulative losses of as much as $225,000, said executive director Lance Klatt. "In the last two weeks, we've gone from getting 10 calls a week to 30 a week," he said. "That's a pretty good example [of] how much the price of fuel has gone up."
Law toughened
The reason the station members call the association is that it can help them recover the money that gas thieves drive away with, a crime that is often not considered a high priority by some police agencies.
A 2001 law made gasoline theft a civil claim that station owners can pursue against thieves, and the service station association processes their claims once it receives a vehicle's license number.
The law made the owner of the vehicle used in a drive-off liable for the cost of the gasoline plus a service charge of $30. If the fee isn't paid to the station operator within 30 days, a civil fine of $100 is assessed. Ultimately, if an owner doesn't pay, his or her driver's license can be suspended for 30 days, under a toughening of the act approved this year by the Legislature.
That makes Minnesota the 27th state where gas thieves' drivers' licenses can be suspended. A variety of other laws is on the books, but the ultimate weapon -- requiring all fuel purchases to be prepaid -- is a step station owners are loathe to take, Lenard said.
"Pre-pay is a last resort because when you require it, you lose customers," he said. "First, pre-pay customers tend to buy less gas. And they're less likely to come into the store and buy other items, which is where convenience stores make their money."
The hoary cliche of drive-offs being the crime of choice of joyriding teenagers is badly out of date, Lenard said. "It's everyone, driving just about everything, from junkers to SUVs. with every type of person driving."
Sipe is frustrated with the options he faces to thwart drive-offs. "I've been putting off installing cameras, but I guess I'll have to," he said. "Sure, I could make everyone pre-pay, but I've got old customers who have been coming since the day I opened. [They're] the most honest people in the world, and I'd hate to do that to them.
"I guess all I can do is be more vigilant."
Bob von Sternberg is at vonste@startribune.com.
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