Gas station proprietors, like other business owners, are free to charge whatever they want, as long as they don’t engage in illegal practices, such as price fixing or gouging.
Jesse Espersen of Topanga fills his SUV at 7.55 per gallon for a total of $124 at a Mobil station at the corner of La Cienega and Beverly boulevards in West Hollywood.
No one factor drives these wide gasoline price gaps, but land prices are a big part of the equation in California. A combination of market forces, local differences and entrepreneurial prerogatives also helps determine prices from one filling station — or county — to the next. “Encino is difficult for business," said Mike Shahri, who works at the Chevron station. “The real estate here is more expensive than many other areas.”
For more than 20 years, California lawmakers and consumer advocacy groups have called for an investigation into why gas prices in California are consistently higher than prices in other states, even after accounting for taxation differences and the costs of adhering to the Golden State’s strict regulatory requirements.
“It’s really astounding, the language [the CEC report] used: They’re charging higher prices because they can; it’s the same gasoline, but there’s nothing they can do about it,” Jamie Court, president of the Consumer Watchdog nonprofit advocacy group, said Thursday. “No one knows how much these guys are making when they process this crude into gasoline.”
“Municipalities are going to be different. Different places have different excise taxes and that’s the sales tax for gas,” she said. “I live in Sacramento, and they have a much higher sales tax for gasoline than another town might have.” Shortly after the CEC report was released in 2019, Newsom asked then-state Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra to investigate alleged price fixing and other problematic practices in the oil and gas supply industry.
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