A Chevron pull-up on the edge of Chinatown always makes the news. It’s one of those Los Angeles gas stations that gets gasps, even screams, from Angelenos horrified by the per-gallon cost, which is infinitely higher than other pumps across the city.
Gasoline prices have risen since the US and Israel attacked Iran more than three weeks ago. Californians, who often face the nation’s highest gas prices due to taxes and clean air laws, are feeling the effects.
But the infamous gas station at the corner of Alameda Street and East Cesar Chavez Avenue across from Union Station on Thursday afternoon was busy nonetheless, with plenty of customers.
For decades now, this station has been a destination for news photographers, cameras and now social media influencers to go where the prices go up. It looks like any other gas station, until you check the price per liter on the digital sign.
The war in Iran, which has hit the oil market, has made Chevron arguably the most popular in the world.
One customer who would give his first and middle names, James Michael, was one of the first, heading into town from Upland with his girlfriend for a concert at the Hollywood Palladium. He wandered to the nearest station expecting higher prices and said. But the usual $8.71?
“I thought it would be really high prices considering what’s going on in the world,” said Michael. “But it’s really expensive. That’s the most I’ve paid as far as I can remember.”
In California as a whole, the price of a gallon of gas reached $5.37 last week, up 82 cents from a month ago, according to AAA. In the Los Angeles area, it was $5.72. But at this particular Chevron, prices are head and shoulders above the surrounding pumps, hovering around $3 higher.
As a result, gas station prices have for years served as the perfect backdrop for instant TV news spots, and reporters from local and national news outlets often stand in front of the sign while discussing oil and gas prices or government policies affecting the cost of a gallon.
Apparently the owners of the gas station had enough of all the attention from journalists, TikTokers and other loggers. When customers were harassed for pumping gas on Thursday, an employee approached a Times reporter and asked them to leave, realizing that it was personal property. The guard pointed to the sky, and said that the “manager” was watching on camera and had no hesitation in calling security.
The gas station is owned by Hawk II Environmental Corp., owned by Whittier man Joe Bezerra Jr. Bezerra did not respond to a request for comment.
AAA spokeswoman Kandace Redd said gas prices can vary greatly from one neighborhood to the next, and higher rents, wages and operating costs are often passed on to drivers. So, he said, gas stations in busy areas near highways, airports and tourist hotspots like downtown LA tend to charge higher prices.
Without operating costs driving prices, stations “could charge even less for convenience,” Redd said. Corner locations that allow customers to easily enter, fill up and exit easily attract more drivers and allow businesses to raise prices without driving away customers.
“People tend to choose the most convenient gas station especially when they need to save time, and they don’t really think about saving money,” said Redd. “Location is important.”
Union Station Chevron is one of the few in LA known for its gas sticker shock.
Charles Khalil, owner of Mobil on La Cienega across from Beverly Center — another L.A. gas station known for its high prices — said land for a gas station that operates in the world is worth millions, and the price varies greatly depending on the desirability of the location. He said he and other private owners made high payments on the loans they took out to buy the properties, and the monthly payment for his La Cienaga station was about $28,000.
Meanwhile, even with large fixed costs remaining, the volume of gas sold has decreased with the growing popularity of electric vehicles, Khalil said. About ten years ago, his station sold more than 150,000 liters a month, sometimes hitting more than 200,000 liters. But that volume dropped to 40,000 gallons a month sold.
Khalil said the decline is common at stations across California, Arizona and Nevada that he has worked with through an advertising firm from his Torrance office; negotiates snack and beverage prices with major companies such as Coca-Cola and Frito-Lay on behalf of gas stations.
He doesn’t see the price hikes as taking advantage of customers, saying gas sellers are simply reacting to problems, such as the Iran war, that are out of their control.
“Every time there is a crisis like this, the owners fear for their livelihood.
Khalil has been in the gas station business for more than 50 years, taking a job at the station soon after immigrating to the US from Lebanon in the late 1960s. The La Cienega Boulevard gas station, which Khalil has used since 1990, was charging $7 per gallon Monday, according to the website GasBuddy.
Back on the other side of town near Union Station, two cars stopped in the station flashing their lights during stoppage time Thursday afternoon. One of the drivers, a woman with a small dog on her lap, talked to the other driver through her window for a few minutes, then picked up the phone. None of them bought gas.
Of the few drivers who bought fuel when the Times reporter was there, most of them did not fill up the tank, but instead took out a few gallons.
Among them was Keith Moore, 58, who works at the nearby Twin Towers Correctional Facility and said he would fill about eight gallons to take him back to his residence in Hawthorne.
“I hate coming here. But sometimes there’s nothing I can do,” Moore said.
