Mandating prepay gas idea getting cool reaction

9 comments July 19th, 2008

In Thursday’s column I wrote about a proposal to make everyone pre-pay when they get gas. Read it here:

I was of two minds about this government intrusion into private business, and  surprised that the lawmaker proposing mandatory prepay  was Sen. Dave Syverson, who positions himself as a conservative Republican. He’s usually for less government.

He insisted that “business wanted this.”

One of those businesses is RoadRanger, where Chief Ranger Dan Arnold made a good argument in favor of prepay — cops spend too much time on gas drive-off calls that could be better spent, and stations that go prepay voluntarily lose business to those that don’t.

So, I sided with Ranger Dan, although I didn’t really care one way or another because I always pay at the pump with plastic.

Well, the reaction, both to my column and to a news story in Thursday’s paper about a plan to enact a county prepay ordinance, was totally negative. Our own editorial board, of which I’m a member, was dead set against it, as were e-mailers. Calls to Ken DeCoster and Doug McDuff on WNTA were universally opposed, too.

So, I told Dave Syverson , there’s no support for this in the public. I suggested an alternative plan: If there are too many calls (we’d have to set a number) to police about drive-offs from a certain station, the owners would be charged for additional calls above the limit.

We do the same for malfunctioning fire alarms.

Not perfect, I know, but it does provide an incentive to go pre-pay.