A Southern California gas station owner says fuel prices are putting a dent in drivers’ wallets, and the pressure is showing up one customer at a time at his pumps. Dave Bohorquez, who owns Valley Center Oil and has run the station for 16 years, said, “Adding insult to injury,” as California gas prices hovered around $5.93 a gallon Sunday morning.
That is far above the national average of $4.09 a gallon, and Bohorquez said the strain is visible inside his station. He said customers are coming in with piles of change just to buy enough fuel to get to work for the day. “We have people coming and literally putting a pile of change on the counter trying to get enough fuel in their vehicle to get to work for the day,” he said. “We are just holding on, hoping to ride through it.”
Bohorquez said the hit is showing up in his own books, not just at the pump. “Our sales are down 15 to 20%. Profits are down probably 25 to 30%, because honestly, on a normal day, we make more money on mini mart sales,” he said. He added that smaller stations cannot easily lower prices when wholesale fuel costs rise, because they may already have fuel in storage bought at a higher price. “If people can only afford fuel in their tank to get to work, it affects the bottom line more,” he said.
California drivers are already paying among the highest gas prices in the country, and another increase is set for July 1. The state’s gas tax rises every year and is tied to inflation, meaning the added cost arrives on an automatic schedule even when household budgets are already tight. Bohorquez said the market has been especially hard to read because wholesale fuel costs are being driven by uncertainty in global supply routes. “This situation is more difficult to handle because it’s sporadic. One day, the news says the strait is open. Wholesale prices fall overnight,” he said. “I’ve taken a load at a high price, and it takes several days to get rid of it. By the time ready for another load, the strait has been closed again, and the fuel prices skyrocket.”
He said that volatility leaves small operators exposed, especially family-run stations that cannot move inventory fast enough to keep up. “It’s tougher for smaller stations that don’t do as much volume. We can’t drop the prices because of wholesale prices if we’ve got $6,000 in the tank that we paid higher prices for. It’s very hard to grasp where the trend is going and stay ahead of the game,” Bohorquez said. The pressure comes even as recent global oil tensions tied to Iran briefly eased, but California prices stayed elevated. For Bohorquez, that means the warning for July 1 is not abstract. It is another cost layered onto a market that already has little room to breathe.
