Suppliers, Stations Differ on What Drives Gasoline Prices

Dear Street Smart:

I was wondering why gas prices in southern Orange County generally tend to be higher than the rest of Orange County and Los Angeles.

As a regional sales manager, I travel all over Southern California, and I have found gas stations in Burbank, Hollywood, Los Feliz, Covina, Anaheim, Seal Beach, etc. selling gas for $1.19 or $1.21 per gallon, while you’re lucky to find a station in the Lake Forest, Mission Viejo, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel area selling gas for less than $1.29!

Why is that? Are we being price gouged because no one is complaining and the stations are happy to pocket the extra money, or is there a legitimate reason?

Pete Anderson

Mission Viejo

The explanation depends on whom you talk to.

Extra money is definitely being pocketed, but by oil companies rather than gas dealers, according to Jan Speelman, executive director of the Automotive Trade Organizations of California, an Irvine-based nonprofit group that represents 1,200 gas station owners statewide. Oil companies disagree, saying that they are not the culprits.

And in a move that could have statewide repercussions, San Diego County’s Board of Supervisors last week took aim at oil companies.

According to Speelman, the price you pay at the pump is strongly influenced by the oil companies, which sell their products to independently-owned gas stations, along with supplying the stations they run.

The more independently-owned stations in an area, the lower the concentration of company-owned operations and the less influence they have on the price overall, Speelman said. Thus, in a highly competitive area such as Los Angeles County, which has about twice as many gas stations as Orange County, prices tend to be lower.

Speelman said gas prices in Southern California get higher as you move away from Los Angeles.

San Diego County, for instance, has the highest prices in the nation, about $1.43 per gallon, compared with $1.28 in Los Angeles County, according to a recent survey by the Lundberg Letter, which tracks gasoline prices nationwide.

San Diego County’s Board of Supervisors last week took a bold step when it adopted an ordinance that would ban oil companies from operating their own outlets by 2000. “We are thrilled that they have stepped forward,� Speelman said. “We think it will cause a ripple effect.�

The ordinance will be phased in over two years if its approved by cities representing two-thirds of the county’s population.

Oil company representatives deny that the stations they own drive prices higher. “If you take company-run stations out of the mix, prices will not come down,� said Arco spokesman Bruce Johnson, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Speelman disagrees and hopes that the idea will spread. “We would love to see Orange County pass something like this.�

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Dear Street Smart:

I have an exceptional opportunity to purchase a 1998 vehicle outside of California.

My plan is to buy the car in Michigan and make a family vacation out of driving back to California this summer. What requirements and/or restrictions does the state of California place upon such purchases?

Tim Howells

Brea

The only extra requirement for cars purchased out of state is one that will affect your pocketbook. It’s a $300 smog-impact fee that, beginning July 1, will help fund a program to repair or remove from the roads older, high-polluting vehicles.

You will, of course, have to register the car in California, as you would any new car. The fee for registering is 2% of the car’s value, which is reduced each year.

Because the car is new, it will be exempted from smog checks until 2002, but you will have to pay a smog fee of $4 a year.

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Dear Street Smart:

Traveling north on Interstate 5 through Mission Viejo between Crown Valley and Oso parkways there is, for all intents and purposes, an informal rest stop. All that I have seen use it are large semitrucks.

The problem arises when they want to rejoin traffic. There is no onramp, and use of the shoulder for acceleration is minimal.

What you end up with is a 20 mph truck fully merged onto the right, with other drivers braking trying to avoid it.

Why, on a controlled-access highway, is there no controlling access?

Bruce Johnson

Dana Point

That “informal rest stop� is an old weigh station for trucks that is no longer used.

Caltrans is constructing an extra lane at the site that will fill up the space and, presumably, solve the problem. Unfortunately, the work will not be completed until late 1999 or early 2000, according to Maureena Duran-Rojas, a spokeswoman for Caltrans.

In the meantime, Duran-Rojas said, your letter prompted her to notify the California Highway Patrol to be on the lookout for truckers using the area illegally.

Street Smart appears Mondays in The Times Orange County Edition. Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about traffic, commuting and what makes it difficult to get around in Orange County. Include simple sketches if helpful. Letters may be published in upcoming columns. Please write to David Haldane, c/o Street Smart, The Times Orange County Edition, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626, send faxes to (714) 966-7711 or e-mail him at David.H[email protected]. Include your full name, address and day and evening phone numbers. Letters may be edited, and no anonymous letters will be accepted.