The privately owned gas station with the full-service pump and the in-house mechanic is going the way of the corner grocery store.
In a world where big is, if not better, at least more competitive, independent gas stations struggle to survive. Increasingly, they don't.Carling's Service Center, 2685 S. 700 East, closed last week. The station's owner, Dale Carling, was leasing the location. The property owner decided to sell and Carling couldn't come up with the $240,000 in cash the property owner wanted.
So the owner sold the place to a floral shop who could pay the asking price. Now Carling, who has owned an auto service center for 30 years, is out of work. He's hunting for a new place to set up his two-man business, but most of the rent is out of his range.
"I've looked at four different locations. They want $2,500 a month rent on them," he said. The chains of self-serve stations and foodmarts - Chevron, 7-Eleven, Circle K - might be able to afford that kind of rent. Carling can't.
"I'm just looking for a little place that my son and I can run," he said.
All he wants are a few gas pumps, a little shop in the back for mechanical work and a following of loyal customers. The customers Carling has got. But his gas station may be a dying dream.
The director of the Utah Petroleum Retailers Association estimates that, since 1974, 70 percent of the independently owned, full-service stations in Utah have gone out of business.
And things are about to get worse. New regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency a few months ago will require gas stations to spend as much as $100,000 to upgrade gas pumps and underground tanks.
The big chains can afford the expense, fitting it into their corporate scheme of credits and debits. But the new regulations could be the final nail on the coffin for small, privately owned stations.
Denny Brown owns Denny's Auto Clinic, the last full-service gas station in Riverton. He runs a full-service island, a self-serve island and a repair shop with seven certified mechanics on the payroll.
A driver could conceivably pull into Denny's, get his gas pumped, tires checked, windows washed, engine tuned, brakes relined and an annual state inspection done - all in one visit by a shop he knows and trusts.
But the mounting cost of running a gas station coupled with brutal competition over pump prices could relegate such familiarity and care to the annals of automobile history.
The new EPA regulations may force Brown to pull out his pumps and tanks and just run a repair shop. He can't afford the estimated $120,000 needed to meet those regulations.
Kent Nelson, owner of Kent Nelson's Conoco Service, 75 S. 900 East, has already put in the new tanks and pumps. "It cost $81,000," he said. "I had to borrow the money to do it."
That's not all. Changes in Salt Lake zoning laws required $2,500 for new landscaping. The clean-air bill being considered by Congress may require all gas stations in the country to use vapor-recovery nozzles. "I imagine that will cost me between $8,000 and $12,000," Nelson said. He will have to dig up freshly laid asphalt and concrete to put in the pipes required on the vapor-recovery nozzle.
That's just to get him through this set of changes. "The next 10 years could see some pretty drastic changes with the EPA and the new fuels coming out," he said. Changes that may force the closure of more neighborhood gas stations run by familiar, trusted faces.
Such closures hurt an already vulnerable segment of drivers. Brown estimates that only 5 percent to 12 percent of his total gas volume is pumped out of the full-service pump. His full-service customer? "Mostly the elderly or handicapped," he said.
Where will they go to get help pumping the gas and checking the tires? No one can answer that.