Owner 'looking out for his customers'

Cherokee County residents awoke Friday to feel one of the aftershocks of Hurricane Ike - surging gas prices.

But the aftershock hardly registered a ripple for the hundreds of motorists who filled their gas tank at Johnny Little's Logan Street gas station over the weekend.

The price of regular gas soared as high as $4.69 a gallon as many stations raised their prices several times each day, but Little kept his price at $3.42 a gallon.

And his many customers were appreciative.

"Johnny's not trying to gouge anybody," said one customer who filled up his tank on Saturday. Johnny is fair-minded man."

You won't get an argument from L.C. Fowler, who arrived to fill up his pickup truck two hours before the service station opened on Saturday.

"It's worth it," Fowler said. I wasn't going to be doing anything anyhow. The way I look at it, we're making money by staying here."

Billy Dean Palmer pulled up at the service station at 9:45 a.m. Saturday and passed the time by talking to other motorists who were waiting in line.

"This is the cheapest gas you can find," Palmer said.

An angry Charles Ellison said there's only one explanation for the pump price disparities.

"It's flat out price gouging," he said. "I came up 13th Street and it was $3.49 and I came to 5-points and it's gone up to $4.05.

For his part, Little said he's only looking out for his customers.

"I bought it (the gas) at a certain price," Little said. "I'll sell it for a certain price."

"I don't like it," he continued. "It's hard on the people."

Little estimated the 15,000 gallons he had in his tanks would last about three days, but really couldn't say how long it would take for them to run dry if the brisk pace of business continued.

On Friday, an average of 40 cars lined up waiting for their turn to fill up at one of the two gas pumps on Little's lot.

On Saturday, twenty-five motorists lined Logan and Birnie streets waiting for the station to turn on its pumps.

Akin to bread and milk flying off the shelves when snow is forecast, motorists rushed to fill up their tanks this weekend when reports aired that gas shortages were likely as a result of Ike's devastation to the oil refineries near. Some stations ran dry, while others asked their customers to limit their purchase to 10 gallons.