Residents seek lowest gas price

morningnewsonline.com Feb 23, 2003 By DWIGHT DANA Staff Writer

Mark Belk pumps gas at the Sav-Way at Five Points Sunday. Belk drives to the beach every weekend with his sons and said he has felt the effects of rising gas prices.

FLORENCE -- Chris Morris is from Lake City but he was filling up the tank of his red Ford pickup in Florence on Sunday because the gas was cheaper.

"This is the cheapest I've found it," he said topping off the tank with regular selling for $1.49 a gallon at Tommy's Quick Mart on South Irby Street.

"But I think the public is getting gouged by the petroleum people," said Morris, the supervisor at a brass company in Horry County. "Somebody's making some money and it's not those of us who are paying higher gas prices."

Todd Davis, a foot and ankle surgeon, was filling up a 2003 BMW 325i with mid-priced high test going for $1.59 a gallon, 10 cents less than the premium juice at $1.69.

"Gas prices don't seem like they are going up with the price of crude oil from what I've read," said Davis, who commutes from Florence to Columbia each day. "It seems to me like they are being hyper-inflated, especially with the threat of war in Iraq."

"Customers keep wondering how high the prices for gas are going to go," said Helen Jordan, a cashier at Tommy's. "I think there are those using the threat of war to hike the gas prices."

Jordan's remarks were echoed by Cindy Cook, who was busy ringing up receipts at another cash register.

"The customers are frustrated and wonder if the gas prices are ever going to come down," Cook said. "I tell them the store here doesn't have any control over what we have to charge for gas."

Prices were higher over at the Sav-Way at Five Points. But one of the perks for paying more was the swiftness of Jason Lewylen, who pumps gas for customers eight hours a day.

Lewylen barely had time to catch a drag on a cigarette in the cubbyhole between the gas pumps that serves as his outdoor office.

"I don't know what's causing the gas to go up, but I have to pay the same price as my customers," Lewylen said, handing change to a driver and thanking him for his business. "What with them talking about war and all that stuff, gas prices are probably going to keep going up."

Jordan buys gas frequently from Sav-Way because he likes the service offered by Lewylen and others who pump gas.

"I think the worry about war in Iraq and problems in oil-producing countries like Venezuela and Nigeria are causing the prices to go up," said Jordan, who retired in 1994 after selling Chevrolets for 40 years at a family owned dealership. "All I know is what I read. I guess we'll just have to learn how to conserve more."

But Judy Martin, a Sav-Way cashier for 11 years, has a different take.

"I don't believe we are that short of gas for it to go up like it's gone up," Martin said while sitting at a table during her break. "I think the price for gas is entirely too high."

Martin, eating fruit from a shallow Styrofoam container, had more to say as she pointed her plastic fork for emphasis.

"They can talk about war and all that, but I worked here long enough to see gas go up in the summer and during holidays and down when winter blows in," she said. "I think they make up their own rules. They just want us to hush up and pay the higher prices."