By Christine de Kock
A FAMILY-run service station in Braybrook was hit hard by last week’s petrol price hike when a litre of petrol rose above $1.35.
George Lambeski owner-operator of a Liberty petrol station in Ballarat Rd said when petrol prices rose by 10 cents last Thursday he lost 20 per cent of his income from saleable items in store.
He said small service station operators, such as himself, relied on customers buying in-store items to keep their businesses afloat.
He added that the number of people driving off without paying for petrol had also increased in recent months, and with the high prices he expected the situation would worsen.
Mr Lambeski said it was inevitable that he would have to introduce a pre-pay system for petrol buyers.
“If it’s going to hit $1.50 or above we’d lose too much money (from drive-offs),” he said.
Mr Lambeski already runs a pre-pay system for customers at night.
“It’s a small site and we arguably have one (drive-off) a week whereas before we’d have one a month – for us, that’s crippling.”
Mr Lambeski introduced the nightly pre-pay system about 12 months ago when petrol prices began to rise.
“I did take collateral, some people would pump petrol and then say they’ve got no money to pay … people leave jewellery, mobile phones and spare tyres.”
He said young men were usually the ones who drove off without paying.
“But last week I saw a guy with his wife and two kids in the car drive off,” he said.
“I didn’t want to stop him, it has to be pretty desperate (for him) if it gets to that.”
