As posted, this law has been in effect for a while here in BC. It affected things the following way:
-decreased in store sales in gas stations
This is the big problem with the proposal. I routinely switch between paying at the pump and going in with no issue, but for the retailer, their margin on gas is very small. They make their money off people coming into the store and buying other stuff. Forcing a pay before you buy system will result in more people just paying at the pump and not going in.
Think about it... 2000 complaints a year, and yet, the retailers haven't made the change themselves. This proposal is all about the police not wanting to deal with it anymore. It's not coming from the public or the retailers.
It's easy for me to say I wouldn't care if people drove off without paying if I was the employee. There is zero chance I would have ever tried to chase down a car in a same or similar situation, but that employee felt the need to try and stop him. I am going to guess that other employees have also tried to stop gasoline thefts in the past and this law means they don't have to. Yes there are still ways to steal gas, but this eliminates the easiest one and makes the lowly paid gas station attendant safer and more secure.
Interesting...so when does a law that prevents me from filling my own slurpee come into place? After all, if we prevent anyone from entering a store then there won't be any holdups either. And to make things safer, you have to register yourself as a shopper so that you can't hold up anyone who is in line outside the store waiting for products to be pushed out the takeout window.
It makes a lot of sense to do this but it should be up to the business to decide if they want to implement it.
This doesn't do anything for the police though. They are still going to be called out when someone steals gas which is the whole reason they want to bring in this law in the first place.
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Interesting...so when does a law that prevents me from filling my own slurpee come into place? After all, if we prevent anyone from entering a store then there won't be any holdups either. And to make things safer, you have to register yourself as a shopper so that you can't hold up anyone who is in line outside the store waiting for products to be pushed out the takeout window.
Sounds like a really good leftist idea to me.
Excellent hyperbole. I didn't think it could be blown that far out of proportion, but it was done!
I am going to guess the people stealing gas or more of a threat to society than the ones stealing slurpees. I'd also guess the cost of gas is more than the cost of a slurpee. With that in mind, the new law would deter the more dangerous and costly criminal. When the thieves can simply drive away with a full tank of gas without having any confrontation, this leads to more opportunity and less deterent. If you have to go into the store and face a person, you are less likely to commit the crime. A store employee would be less likely to chase you over a slurpee than a tank of gas if it came out of his pay cheque, keeping in mind I don't think it should ever come out of his/her paycheque.
This is the big problem with the proposal. I routinely switch between paying at the pump and going in with no issue, but for the retailer, their margin on gas is very small. They make their money off people coming into the store and buying other stuff. Forcing a pay before you buy system will result in more people just paying at the pump and not going in.
Think about it... 2000 complaints a year, and yet, the retailers haven't made the change themselves. This proposal is all about the police not wanting to deal with it anymore. It's not coming from the public or the retailers.
What the retailers will work out fairly quickly is you don't need a gas station anymore, just a pump at the side of the road, no overhead, not much cost for real estate, no salary to pay. See it all the time in europe.
What the retailers will work out fairly quickly is you don't need a gas station anymore, just a pump at the side of the road, no overhead, not much cost for real estate, no salary to pay. See it all the time in europe.
C'mon... thats just crazy talk. This country doesn't do things that way. We still pay people to deliver our Visa bills and store flyers to our houses when there is the neato new invention that allows you to check it anytime, anywhere, in real time.
I do my fuel shopping at Calgary Co-op (when I can).
Again, I don't use Pay at the Pump often, but when I do, I usually end up thinking, this would have been so much easier and quicker had I just gone inside to pay for it. Heck, I've been tempted to cancel the process halfway through, and go in and pay instead, since the process was talking so long.
Co-op has easily the slowest pay at pump. Every step can take more then 10 secs.
Esso has fastest pay at pump transaction. :thumbsup:
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I just hate the whole heavy handed nature of this law. A business should be able to decide if it is willing to take the losses due to theft vs the benefit of customers coming inside and spending more.
A good example is a store like best buy and future shop. Now Alberta could pass a law that all items in an electronics store require the strap alarms attached to them. This would decrease shoplifting but it would cost the business money. The businesses decide at what point the cost and hassle of keeping things behind counters and placing alarms on products is worthwhile.
Should there be a requirement that all ground level windows for businesses have bars on them? It would reduce break ins. Again this decision is left up to the business.
Businesses should be responsible for assessing risk and accepting risk and insuring against risk not the government.
I think from an OHS standpoint stations should have an official gas and go policy that states employees are not allowed to prevent gas and gos and are not in any way responsible for them but beyond that the proposed law is ridiculous.
I even laugh at the amount of time the Police are complaining about 66 person weeks. 1.25 officers. 173k or about 17 cents a calgarian. I would suspect that on average gas stations will see a profit reduction of more than $3.40 a person per year due to a loss in in store sales. Why $3.40 a person??? well the GST on $3.40 would be enough tax to cover the the 17 cents a person it costs for the police to deal with these incidents.
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Location: Close enough to make a beer run during a TV timeout
Exp:
I was just trying to crunch some similar numbers. How many gas stations are there in Calgary? I couldn't find a definite answer; but looking at a few estimates I would put the number around 300. So if there were 2000 thefts last year; that means the average station has a theft every 2 months. Say the average theft is $75- that's $450 per year in losses.
How much would the station lose in upgrades and/or loss of revenue from other sales? It wouldn't be hard to reach $450 in a hurry.
Going back to the safety- most retail places I have worked have told us not to fight with a robber. I can't see a gas station making an employee responsible for a theft; never mind the legallity of trying.
Going back to the safety- most retail places I have worked have told us not to fight with a robber. I can't see a gas station making an employee responsible for a theft; never mind the legallity of trying.
I think it is more the mindset and culture. If a gas and go happens on your shift and you get reamed out by your boss and he starts giving you the crappy shifts then the next time you might try to prevent it.
I think from a robbery stand point inside the general culture is don't be a hero I having never been a pump jockey have no idea what the safety culture would be like.
What the retailers will work out fairly quickly is you don't need a gas station anymore, just a pump at the side of the road, no overhead, not much cost for real estate, no salary to pay. See it all the time in europe.
IIRC the Esso at Memorial and 36th NE was converted from a regular station to one that is unmanned and exclusively pay at the pump.
Excellent hyperbole. I didn't think it could be blown that far out of proportion, but it was done!
I am going to guess the people stealing gas or more of a threat to society than the ones stealing slurpees. I'd also guess the cost of gas is more than the cost of a slurpee. With that in mind, the new law would deter the more dangerous and costly criminal. When the thieves can simply drive away with a full tank of gas without having any confrontation, this leads to more opportunity and less deterent. If you have to go into the store and face a person, you are less likely to commit the crime. A store employee would be less likely to chase you over a slurpee than a tank of gas if it came out of his pay cheque, keeping in mind I don't think it should ever come out of his/her paycheque.
I can try to make it more clear for you but that might be tough...customer enters store and robs it (I used slurpee as an example, but exchange for money, cookies, beer, nacho cheese squirty stuff), so law is passed banning customers from entering stores. After all, people have died working in stores, haven't they? Many stores (especially late night places) already do not allow customers inside at night, why not legislate that?
It is clear this is being pushed due to some lobby representing the large retail gas companies. By legislating this, everyone will be on equal footing. No company is going to be the first to risk making the move, since many customers will simply go to competition.
My point is that where does this type of legislation end? I would think there are many technical solutions to prevent or minimize gas theft besides paying first.
