SAN FRANCISCO
Cheap gas, but a long wait
At $2.98 a gallon, station pumped dry by late afternoon

Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, June 1, 2007

To some people -- hundreds, in fact -- $5 is worth waiting three hours in line.

That was the lesson learned Thursday, as motorists idled in block-long queues just to gas up at the Shell station at Sixth and Harrison streets in San Francisco, where owner Bob Oyster was offering a rare deal: gas for less than $3 a gallon.

They traveled miles, crossed toll bridges and ran their engines for hours, all to save $5 or $10.

Oyster's prices were low -- $2.98 for regular, a penny more for higher octane -- but still just 50 cents less than the city's average of $3.53 per gallon.

In the shadow of the Chevron across the street, which was selling premium gas for $3.81, however, many customers fueled up with the feeling they were getting a deal.

"It's worth it to me -- every penny is worth it," said Shirley Hodges of Hayward, who waited 2 1/2 hours to fill up her Mercury Villager van.

As the ticker inched closer to $60, Hodges began to have doubts.

"Maybe I'm not saving as much as I thought," she said, but soon determined she had paid about $10 less than usual. The going-out-of-business deal was part of Oyster's one-man protest against Shell Oil Co., which he accuses of charging independent gas station owners higher prices, cutting their profits. Previously, Oyster had raised his prices to above the $4-per-gallon mark -- making passers-by wonder why anyone would stop there when they could pull into the Chevron for a better deal.

But on Wednesday, Oyster changed his tack and said the station would offer $2.98 gas until the last 6,000 gallons were gone.

The final drops were drained by 5 p.m. Thursday, with premium grade the first to go.

There were some testy nerves and a lot of honking horns, but most people were all smiles as they pumped their relatively cheap fuel. One bicyclist riding by wasn't nearly as pleased, yelling, "You're all idiots! Idiots!" before she pedaled off down Harrison.

Sabrina Allen, who drove all the way from San Leandro for the rare deal, said she saved $8 or $9 filling up her Dodge Charger with about 11 gallons of gas.

Customer Avon Curtis also said it was well worth her 90 minutes in line for the $4 she saved filling up her Ford Focus, regardless of the fact that she was running late for work.

"I have to think smart. I'm a single parent, so I have to budget my money," said Curtis, a San Francisco mother of six.

Some customers weren't so sure they had spent their time wisely.

David Budd of San Francisco said his one hour, 40-minute wait wasn't worth the $4 he saved to fill up his hybrid Honda Civic -- it made him 15 minutes late to pick up a friend at the airport.