The Difficult Days After

From New York to California, the convenience store and petroleum marketing industry's employees and executives responded to the destruction of New York's World Trade Center and a portion of the Pentagon by quickly jumping into action.

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania brought out the best in convenience store retailers and suppliers. The industry raised funds for relief, donated supplies to the rescue effort and served as community centers for citizens to gather, talk and connect. (For more on fund-raising and donations, see Page 16.)

At a Quick Chek store in northern New Jersey, one man described how his wife rushed down 33 flights of stairs in the World Trade Center in pitch darkness moments after the first terrorist plane shook one of the two 110-story towers. "I couldn't reach her for hours," the man said, sipping a coffee from the snack booth inside the store.

Chainwide, the Whitehouse Station, N.J., Quick Chek Food Stores Inc., whose 105 stores canvass the state, posted 3-foot-by-5-foot American flags the morning after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, positioned canisters at checkout counters to collect funds for the American Red Cross, and shut down all stores at 7 p.m., Friday Sept. 14 so all employees could participate in a candlelight vigil.

"Our stores have been very hectic. It was a little quiet the Tuesday evening of the attack," said Mike Murphy, Quick Chek's director of operations. "But Wednesday was hectic. We're part of the neighborhood ? people needed a place to go to talk and be together."

He praised several store managers for taking matters into their own hands. One, for instance, extended store hours on the day of the attack as motorists were stranded due to shutdowns of major thoroughfares. "It was literally a tent city," Murphy said. "Some store managers were donating water and sandwiches. It makes you proud as a leader of a company to see people act on their own and do the right thing."

The concern and patriotism displayed at Quick Chek was echoed at c-stores across the nation. Companies such as 7-Eleven Inc., Family Express Corp., Sheetz Inc., Ameristop Inc., Shell Oil Co., Texaco Inc. and Exxon Mobil Corp. are just a few of the hundreds of industry chains and supplier companies to donate food, beverages and much-needed cash to aid relief efforts.

Panic Leads to Gas Run

While c-stores served as gathering spots to discuss the tragedy and drop-off points for relief supplies and cash donations, they also battled challenges. In the Midwest, motorists ? facing a crunch because of an already tight distribution system ? pulled a gasoline run, fearful of when the next shipment of fuel would reach stores. Unfortunately that, sparked by some unscrupulous retailers, prompted prices to triple for several hours and launched accusations of widespread price gouging.

"There was no crisis, there was no emergency that somebody could be taking advantage of to jack up prices. All there was was panic," said Tom Osborne, communications director at the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America (SIGMA). "The only people who got taken advantage of, for the most part, were the ones who were causing the problem ? the motorists who were buying out of panic when they didn't need it."

He added, "Certainly there were individual cases of people looking to take advantage of this opportunity, but they're few and far between. It's unfairly giving our industry a black eye." Osborne and other industry experts also noted that several major suppliers spiked their wholesale prices by at least 20 cents on the day of the attack, only to restore the prices after negative publicity, though he declined to name them.

The issue of alleged gouging raised eyebrows in Illinois, where state Attorney General Jim Ryan took legal action against Ankeny, Iowa-based Casey's General Stores Inc. and others he accused of jacking prices to as much as $5 a gallon. Casey's, operator of more than 1,300 stores, appeared embarrassed by high prices at some locations and immediately offered refunds to exploited customers.

"We've identified 20 to 25 stations in western Illinois, in the Peoria and Moline areas where prices went up to $4 to $5 for 10 to 90 minutes," said Casey's CFO Jim Shaffer. "Once we found out about it we immediately took appropriate action and by late Tuesday afternoon prices were restored to normal levels. By opening day Wednesday, we were issuing refunds to customers, making up the difference between what they paid and what the price was at the start of the day."

Shaffer said store managers responsible for the spikes had acted based on rumors of gas shortages, as well as lines of cars topping off their tanks at the same time. The runs left some locations without gas for several days, he said, but added he did not anticipate any long-term shortages.

In the Mid-Atlantic area of Virginia and Maryland, Liberty Petroleum LLC., a new retail player founded by three petroleum marketers and whose logo is the American flag, distributed hand-size flags to customers one day after the attacks, and replaced a promotions banner with one that reads, "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave."

"We see our image as part of Americana, to go with mom and apple pie," said Liberty co-founder Howard "Blackie" Bowen.