2, 'by the time one of our trucks got to the refinery, the wholesale price had risen higher than my pump price, so I closed my Wildwood station down four hours early.' That owner, Paul Riggins, who operates and supplies more than a dozen stations in South Jersey from Wildwood to Trenton, said that on Sept. A station owner who was not cited, who said he was aware of the law forbidding multiple price changes in a 24-hour period, said he chose to close rather than break the law. Others said they had been scrambling to stay afloat as wholesale prices rose, leaving them no choice but to raise prices. Harvey said they did not know about the state law against changing prices more than once in a day. In interviews, some of the owners of the stations cited by Mr. They were charged with defrauding consumers by raising the prices in violation of state law.

Harvey said, stations were said to have raised prices four or five times in one day as the commodities markets raged because of Hurricane Katrina. According to oil industry and public policy analysts, New Jersey is the only state to have a law barring multiple price increases on gasoline in a 24-hour period.Ĭomplaints were filed against stations selling Citgo, Hess, Shell and Sunoco brands, as well as their suppliers. The civil action makes New Jersey the first state to take legal action in response to the growing anxiety over suddenly and steeply rising gasoline prices. Harvey charged in state court on Monday that 20 gas stations in New Jersey and the oil companies that supplied them violated state fuel pricing and consumer laws by raising their prices more than once in a single day during the recent run-up in gasoline prices.

24 hour gas stations