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DRIVE-OFF PUMPERS STEAL STATION PROFITS

2-27-00 By AMY WOLFFORD, Staff Writer News & Record

GREENSBORO -- It's not the robbers Clarence Whitfield worries about. It's the thieves who never enter the gas station.

In the nine years Whitfield has worked for Exxon, he's been robbed once. But he can't count the number of people who drive off without paying for gasoline.

"It just grabs my goat every time it happens," Whitfield said from his small office inside the Tiger Mart just north of Interstate 40. "You're here to make the company money through the selling of gas. Regardless of the amount -- $1, $3, $5, up to $20 -- it's just wrong to take an innocent cashier for granted."

Just last Thursday Whitfield was in the store when a customer drove off without paying, a crime that went unreported because the clerk was unable to catch the license plate number or a description of the car. And with gas selling at about $1.35 a gallon in the Triad, Whitfield and others can't help but wonder if they'll see more drive-offs and bigger losses because they, too, are paying more for the fuel they sell.

"Obviously, it's very logical as the price of gas goes up, there's certainly more of an incentive for theft to go up," said Dan Gilligan, president of the Petroleum Marketers Association of America. "We hear that in the tenor of the voices of the dealers with that problem." The problem is year-round and costly. The Virginia-based National Association of Convenient Stores reports its members -- who sell about 60 percent of the nation's motor fuel -- lost about $164 million in 1998 from gas drive-offs. About 16 million people drove off without paying that year, the group said.

When statistics come in for this year, police officers, store managers and association leaders fear the worst.

"It's got to make the numbers go up," said Al Dorsett, executive director of the N.C. Service Station Association. "When we see the figures six months from now, we'll know."

To make the often-unsolved misdemeanor less appealing to criminals, Dorsett's organization and others are researching possible legislation that would suspend the driver's license of anyone convicted of the crime two times.

Similar laws went into effect last year in Georgia and Alabama, where intense advertising campaigns include stickers on each pump with a state trooper warning motorists not to steal gas. Alabama suspended its first license as a result of the law earlier this year.

"The word we're getting out of Georgia is that on average, they're saving an average of $1,200 a year per location," said Gary Harris, executive vice president of the N.C. Petroleum Marketers Association. "I thought that was pretty good. It's a misdemeanor crime. It's breaking the law. It's difficult, and all of us pay for it in the long run."

The Greensboro Police Department -- which investigated 703 reported drive-offs last year and 64 through mid-February -- sent Officer Greg Gardner to a seminar earlier this month to investigate new ways of lowering the number of future drive-offs.

"We have a large amount of them and most go unsolved," Gardner said. Scores more go unreported because clerks just don't get enough information to help police find the suspect.

"Our answer to this problem is easy -- prepay for gas," he said. "But the problem is prepay."

That's because retailers think the concept isn't customer friendly. It makes it seem like they don't trust customers. And it keeps some from coming into the store for more purchases.

So police offer other tips to gas station owners, such as keeping window views clear so clerks can get good descriptions, installing outside cameras to help record license plate numbers and training employees to know what to look for.

Gardner said gas stations need to prosecute more, sending more of a message that they won't tolerate this crime.

"We know this problem's not going away. This is an issue that's a thorn in our side and we're looking for ways to solve this problem," Gardner said.

It's the same day-to-day struggle Whitfield deals with every time he heads to his office inside the Exxon Tiger Mart.

"You try to come up with things and say, 'What can we do today to make drive-offs stoppable?'" Whitfield said. "It's an uphill battle."

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-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), February 27, 2000

Answers

I've found a number of SAs in Twin Cities subburbs that have prepay all the time. Other stations have prepay after dark or after 11, or pay at pump with a credit card.

-- John (littmannj@aol.com), February 27, 2000.