Gulp! Try $4.50!

[Keith]

Gulp! Try $4.50!

Brooklyn gas station floors it

BY JONATHAN LEMIRE and RICH SCHAPIRO

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

With pump prices rising fast, a gas station under the Brooklyn Bridge took a quantum leap into outrageousness - charging a jaw-dropping $4.50 a gallon!

That's what the Gulf Station on Old Fulton St. in Brooklyn Heights was charging credit card customers for a gallon of premium yesterday.

A gallon of regular gas was no bargain, either, at $4.14 for cash or $4.26 on plastic.

"That's crazy," said Mike Charles, 49, after gawking at the astronomical rates. "I've never seen gas prices like that before."

"There's no way I'd ever pay that much," he added. "I don't care how badly I needed gas."

Around the city, motorists were bracing for prices to crest at $3, a figure the Brooklyn station left in the dust.

A Daily News reporter spent nearly 90 minutes outside the station yesterday evening before a driver finally decided to fork over an exorbitant amount of dough for some fuel.

"I had no other options," said Carey Macaleer, 29, as she paid a whopping $49.16 to fill up her navy blue Subaru Outback. "I'm virtually empty and I'm going to Westchester."

Donald Borbee, co-manager of the station, said its prices were so high because the station's tanks are small, requiring numerous deliveries.

He added that the station functions primarily as an auto repair and service shop.

"We know it's expensive, but we don't have a choice," Borbee said.

As New Yorkers lashed out against the skyrocketing fuel prices yesterday, Sen. Chuck Schumer called for an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission to ensure that rising gas prices are not a result of corporate greed.

"It's not hurricane season, but the oil companies are just raising the price up and up and up," Schumer said. "And the question is are they doing this dictated on the laws of supply and demand, or is something else at work?"

For Ireal Hawks, 28, a Poland Spring deliveryman from Brooklyn, the rising gas prices have serious consequences. "It's just too much," Hawks said, as he filled up his truck at a Hess station in midtown. "I can't make a living like this."

[O'Dannyboy]

I feel badly for those people suffering fuel shortages. This is just another sign of how our government has become more reactive rather than pro-active. Our government is proficient at planning and gathering information and discussing it but have forgotten how to take action. Katrina is the biggest indicator. I don't even wan't to think about how they would handle something they consider inevitable, such a a nuclear strike on U.S. soil. Imagine how much better off our nation would be if our government could manage to spend a single decade minding its own affairs and tending to the needs of its own people.

[hat_town21]

You would think that if some places have gas at over 4 bucks a gallon Bush would do something...