crows to burnaby

Post details: What's the deal with the gas station deals?

Sun December 12, 2004

06:44:58 pm, Categories: Vancouver, 202 words

What's the deal with the gas station deals?

Every single gas station in Vancouver has a little sign on the ground that says gas is 3.5 cents/litre cheaper at the pump than on the actual sign.

Why? There must be some regulation that says they can't advertise it at the "actual" 3.5-cent-cheaper price, but I haven't found any explanation for it. I've found people wondering about it, and I've found a highly relevant article about gas prices going up by 3.5 cents in the Greater Vancouver area, but that doesn't explain why the gas stations don't just post their gas prices at the actual selling price.

BTW, the article also mentions that Greater Vancouver has the highest gas taxes in Canada. Well, you know what - somebody has to. Somebody also has to have the highest tuition, highest unemployment, highest banking fees... you name it, if it can be ranked by number, somebody's going to have the highest. The question is, what is it relative to? Is Greater Vancouver's gas tax related to the high cost of transportation in the area, or an effort to reduce gasoline use? Since everything else in Vancouver is expensive, should we be surprised?

Anyway, if someone could enlighten me on the 3.5 cent thing, that'd be nice.

1 comment

Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: Simon [Visitor] · http://www.sheff2van.ca

Yes, I can't work out the logic either. And why do the prices go up and down - one price in the morning and another in the afternoon? And sometimes 10c different on different sides of the road.

Where just interlopers here from another land, but we thought all the locals understood what was going on.

When we've been drivng around with visitors we start saying things like '72.9', '81.5', etc - they think we're talking about the temperature but we're really reading out the gas prices.

[There, remembered to call it gas so maybe I'm becoming a local after all].

12/19/04 @ 09:44

Really sorry, but new comments have been disabled because the spammers have ruined it for everyone. I don't maintain this blog any more and almost all the comments I get are people trying to sneak in links to their products. If you really genuinely have something you need to say to me personally, email me at kirsten --AT-- crowstoburnaby dot com.

Kirsten Starcher lives in Vancouver, BC, spending half her time as a musician, playing bass in ARCTIC as well as solo, and the other half as a web designer/developer.
You can contact her at "kirsten at crowstoburnaby dot com" (turn it into a proper email address, of course!).