THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 1, 1996 TAG: 9606010223
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WINDSOR LENGTH: 68 lines
Passers-through and Windsor locals are on a joy ride.
Why?
There's a gas-price war in this Isle of Wight County crossroads, and it's getting hot.
While gas prices have jumped most other places, they've been heading south at five service stations lining U.S. 460 in sleepy Windsor.
By Friday, regular unleaded was selling for $1.10 a gallon at two stations, and $1.11 a gallon at a couple others. Mid-grade fuel was going for $1.19 and premium for $1.29. In most parts of Hampton Roads, regular unleaded is selling for nearly what premium gas sells for in Windsor.
Southern Oil Co. Inc. of Suffolk takes credit for starting the price war. But Southern President David Holland isn't sure how it will end.
On Thursday, he drove to Windsor only to discover that three of his four competitors had met Southern Food Store's price - or come within a penny.
``It's not a whole lot of fun to give the stuff away,'' Holland said. ``But we have to protect our image as the lowest-priced marketer in Windsor, and that's what we'll do.
``There's a lot of fuel sold in Windsor for such a small town.''
Even as the gas-price battle is putting the squeeze on the gas stations' profits, customers are happily squeezing a few more gallons into their tanks.
Great Bridge residents Jack and Shirley Markham waited to fill up on Wednesday in Windsor, even though they were low on gas when they left Chesapeake.
``We had to come up here today and we were on E in Great Bridge,'' said Shirley Markham. ``We put 2 or 3 gallons in to get here, to get us where we were going; now we're filling up.''
It's passers-by like Markham that the gas stations are looking to attract. Windsor itself, at the crossroads of Virginia Route 258 and U.S. 460, is home to only 1,025 people.
So what fueled the feud?
``The prices were going up and we said, `Let's go the other way,' '' said Regina Arnette, manager of the Chasmar Convenience and Gas station, which sells Exxon fuel and Burger King food. ``We just want their business. We hope with the price low, they'll come in.''
Jill Darden, manager of the Citgo Sentry Food Mart, says she drives in from Franklin every day and ``good grief, we're the only place with prices this low.''
``Some man came in and said, `I didn't really need gas, but y'all are so cheap I had to fill up.' ''
The lower prices in Windsor are not entirely due to the price war. The Environmental Protection Agency considers Hampton Roads a smog area. As a result, gas stations in Hampton Roads are required to sell reformulated gasoline that burns cleaner - and costs more.
Isle of Wight County is not part of the EPA's smog area, so stations there can sell regular gasoline. But Dwight Farmer, transportation director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, estimates that reformulated gasoline adds only about 5 cents to a gallon.
Gas station owners don't like to talk about their profit on a gallon of gas, but Farmer said $1.10 a gallon for regular is ``probably about their cost right now.'' ILLUSTRATION: HOW LOW CAN THEY GO?
LAWRENCE JACKSON
The Virginian-Pilot
Southern Food Store is one of five stations in Windsor that have
been lowering gas prices. In most of Hampton Roads, regular unleaded
is selling for nearly what premium sells in Windsor. by CNB