Easley activates price-gouging law

Gov. Mike Easley today activated the state's law against price gouging while anxious drivers packed gas stations and prices shot up as Hurricane Ike disrupted supplies.

Already, many stations in the Triangle were charging well over $4 a gallon for regular unleaded, far above what had been an average price of $3.69 in the region.

The Handee Hugo on Western Boulevard near Dan Allen Drive in Raleigh, for instance, was charging $4.89 a gallon for regular and $5.09 for premium this afternoon. And two Crown stations on South Saunders Street and South Wilmington Street in Raleigh raised prices to $4.79 for regular and $4.99 for premium.

As people rushed to gas stations and prices appeared to spike, Easley declared a state of "abnormal market disruption," allowing the Attorney General's Office to enforce the law against price gouging, or charging unreasonably high prices in times of crisis.

"We know that there will be some supply disruption, but we do not yet know the extent," Easley said in a statement. "Past events of this kind have lasted only a short time. I urge motorists to reasonably conserve gasoline until the situation is clearer."

As a result of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, oil refineries in Texas and Louisiana temporarily interrupted some gas supplies to pipelines, meaning there could be temporary limits on supplies, Easley said. However, he said, wholesale prices are up less than 20 cents a gallon over the past few days, so prices should not rise substantially higher.

Attorney General Roy Cooper urged gas stations to avoid "panic price increases" and consumers to avoid "panic fill-ups.”

"People are understandably frustrated that already high gas prices are rising so quickly," Cooper said.

Consumers with complaints about price gouging can call the attorney general's Consumer Protection Division toll free at 1-877-566-7226 or download a price gouging complaint form from www.ncdoj.gov and mail it to the Attorney General's Office.

Among customers at the Handee Hugo on Western was Jennifer Garr, a sophomore at N.C. State University. Garr said she stopped at the station after her mother called her from Winston-Salem and urged her to get gas. She said her mother had heard a report that gas was selling for $4.99 in Winston-Salem and could go higher.

At stations with lower prices, motorists formed long lines. About 40 cars blocked a lane of South Saunders Street in Raleigh near the Kangaroo station as motorists waited their turn for gas selling for $3.51 a gallon.

On Thursday, The Pantry posted signs at its 1,600-plus gas stations in 11 Southeastern states asking customers to pump only 10 gallons of gas each.

Charlotte resident Darrell LeGrand stopped off today at a Kangaroo gas station in Raleigh to fill up. LeGrand, a salesman for a beauty products company, said he got phone calls and text messages from friends this morning telling him to fill up.

"It's amazing to me how they can change the price for the gas that's already in the ground," he said.

Still, LeGrand said, he hopes that gas prices will go back down once the storm passes.

"I'm an eternal optimist," he said. "It's an election year. It's not going to stay up for too long."