The Sunoco gas station on Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue has lacked any gas since last Wednesday. Attendant Marwan Alan is not sure when they’ll get more, but cars line up all around the lot, waiting for the delivery truck.
“Soon as they see the truck, they will jump. Oh wait all those people there? I see at least one, two cars, a few of them down the block, waiting for gas,” he says.
Opportunistic New Yorkers are now offering their extra fuel on the black market at up to $20 a gallon. David Greenfield, a New York City council member, says the practice is not legal.
“Uh no, of course not. It’s not legal to sell gas on the street or on craigslist or online, or out of the trunk of your car, right, we don’t even know what kind of gas it is that your purporting to be selling!”
To avoid the long lines in Brooklyn, the council member himself was headed to New Jersey last night to buy gas.
“It’s something that really should have been foreseen. And it’s kind of surprising that we’re in this situation right now,” he says.
Greenfield says the best defense against price gouging is to bring more fuel trucks to the city as soon as possible.
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