More motorists are gassing up and driving off without paying

Last summer, each of Bill Douglass' nine convenience stores lost an average of $50 a month to motorists who drove off without paying. This summer, he expects his losses to be at least 10 times higher.

''Overall we're averaging $500, but in our largest store it's up to $1,000 per month,'' the Sherman, Texas, businessman says. ''We're taking all kinds of measures, installing video cameras, photographing license plates. This is a very serious problem.''

With prices at the pump soaring, convenience stores and service stations are seeing more and more motorists gassing up and driving off without paying.

''It's the price of gas and misdirected consumer anger. They may not blame the gas store owner or retailer, but they take it out on them because they can't take it out on OPEC or others who have been brought into the conversation about high prices,'' says Jeff Lenard, a spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores, based in Alexandria, Va.

''Drive-offs cost retailers roughly $2,600 per store last year, based on a gas price of $1.13 per gallon. We expect that will significantly increase this year.''

Gas prices have climbed to well over $2 per gallon in the Midwest and are at record levels in other parts of the country. The average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gas nationwide has reached $1.68, nearly 44 percent higher than last summer's average.

Lenard says the drive-offs appear to be spread across the country, rather than being concentrated in any one region.

The thefts are especially high at stations along interstates or in big cities, where people may be more confident that they get away with it by blending into the crowd, according to Lenard. The thieves tend to be young men, though reports of women stealing gasoline are on the rise.

Legal options for the gas stations are few.

Most states that allow self-service at the gas pump, including Texas, make a drive-off a misdemeanor, and authorities often do not have the time or resources to pursue such low-level offenses.

''We've had limited success prosecuting people. It's not too often you get a license plate, but if you do, you turn it over to the police, and if you're talking about $10 to $20 theft, it doesn't get too much attention,'' says Richard Oneslager, who owns two convenience stores in Denver.

A few states are starting to take the crime more seriously. Beginning July 1, Kansas drivers who repeatedly gas and dash could lose their licenses. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, West Virginia and Tennessee have similar penalties.

''I'd say we've had fewer drive-offs,'' says Chris Creech, who works at Cambridge Chevron in metropolitan Atlanta.

Gene Shultz of Quantum Services, a Columbus, Ohio, auditing company. suggests that gas station employees greet customers on the intercom as they pull up, and move displays that block a cashier's view of the pumps.

Another option is requiring motorists to pay before they begin pumping - a step Jay Ricker, who owns 20 convenience stores in Anderson, Ind., hopes to avoid, even though he expects to lose more than $60,000 to gas thefts this year.

In addition to the inconvenience for customers who have to stand in line before they can fill up, ''people become angry if you don't trust them,'' he says.

Fewer than 10 percent of pumps nationally required customers to pay first all of the time in 1996, according to the most recent statistics from the National Association of Convenience Stores.

Studies suggest that customers who have to prepay buy less gasoline and fewer groceries.

But Steve DiStefano says theft has become such a big problem at his Columbia, Md., station that he is considering making customers prepay.

He has video evidence and the license plate of a customer suspected of gassing and dashing eight times, but the driver has to be convicted before DiStefano can get his money back.

''It's becoming a hassle for me and the police department,'' DiStefano says. ''When somebody drives off with $10 worth of gas, you've got to sell a lot of gas to make that up.''