GAS PRICES HAVE BEEN ALL UP IN the news cycles these past few months. Prices have dramatically increased, resulting in a current national average of $4.51/gallon at the time of this writing ($5.77/gallon in Washington state), with estimates saying American families are paying nearly $200 average-per-month more on gas and analysts surmising that prices won’t be coming down significantly anytime soon. I was getting gas the other day at the station with lowest prices in town (nearly 25 cents less than the state average and almost 50 cents less than many other stations at the time). This station at the corner of Perry & Sheridan in East Bremerton only has two pumps running out of the four on the lot and after waiting my turn in line, the guy using the pump across from me lamented: ‘cheapest prices in town, but they’ve got to do something about these pumps’ as he huffed in to prepay. ‘Cheapest prices in town, but you’ve got to earn it!’ I laughed. I remembered reading somewhere that gas stations don’t really make all that much profit off gas itself. I’d also known that this station recently came under new management. Which got me thinking, who were the people behind these ‘cheapest prices in town’ and how did they keep them so low. Inside the store, I meet Harpreet and Shamsheer and their daughter who’ve been renovating and running this station since last September. The daughter’s art work is posted on the wall behind the register but she decidedly did not want to talk about it. (And she definitely did not want her picture taken:) Harpreet was a semi truck driver based out of Seatac for the past decade before moving to Bremerton to run this corner store. He’s renovating a house for the family when he is not running the store. Shamsheer grew up in gas stations and said she never wanted to run one. She works the night shift at Tacoma General Hospital in the NICU unit and shuttles their daughter between work and the grandparents’ house in Seatac for childcare when she’s not helping run behind-the-scenes, tech things and the register at the store. I ask when they find time to sleep. Shamsheer says not a lot. Aside from the business, we talked a lot about the community created with their customers, how new pumps should be on their way and how this town has a reputation as a good place for a fresh start.
SMOKESTACK: HOW DID THE OPPORTUNITY COME UP FOR YOU TO RUN THIS STATION? HARPREET: Right now, I’m leasing it. This came across from my father in law. He got it, I think seven or eight years ago, maybe. He was leasing it to someone. He wanted to sell it. And I told him why don’t you let me take over, and I’ll see how it does. And I’ll buy it from you instead.
AND HOW’S IT BEEN GOING? THAT CAN’T BE EASY. Oh no, it’s been a roller coaster.
HOW MANY HOURS ARE YOU GONNA PUT IN TODAY? Usually a typical day, I mean, it never stops really, honestly. I’ll be here in the morning at 7, and my guy Sean, he comes in at 3. But I don’t ever leave at 3, you know. There’s always something. A register messes up. A customer has an issue. Just you know… paper work… you’ve gotta do your own shopping for some stuff… ordering, and… our pumps have been giving us just struggles…
THAT’S WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT WHEN WE FIRST MET, BUT IT’S NOT SO EASY TO JUST GET NEW PUMPS. Some people take the easy route where they sign a contract, like say with Chevron or whoever… and then they do a 10 year, 13 year contract or whatever they want to do. But they’ll pay for you to make store pretty. So they can invest 300K to put in a new canopy or a new sign, and then you use their brand. But with that brand comes they have their own fees. So you’re running their register and then they take a percentage out of your gas bill because you’re using their name type of deal. And then you can only order fuel through them. That’s why the fuel prices reflect, that’s why they’re higher. Of course, I could’ve done that, and got the store, you know, how I wanted. But then you’re stuck with them for however long is in the contract.
HOWEVER LONG THEY DECIDE? Until your contract is over and whatnot. That’s why I’m independent. I didn’t go with anybody. So I can shop around for fuel. Same places where they shop around, though. The fuel is not coming from anywhere special. Everyone’s getting it from the same distributors. Just different carriers bring it on their trucks.
HAVE YOU HAD PEOPLE NOTICING YOUR PRICES? Oh yeah… so when we first started off I could watch a show on Netflix before anyone even popped in the door, you know. Started off maybe selling 200 gallons a day of fuel, maybe. Then we slowly hit 300, 400. And that was like ‘Oh, wow’ we were so happy to hit 400, right? And then, somebody who runs the Manette facebook page, he came in and my wife was working. He liked her attitude and decided to make a post about this gas station. And literally the 400 gallons doubled to 800. Which was amazing. We couldn’t be more thankful to him for doing that. He stopped by, and I told my wife to give him a free tank of gas, just as a thank you.
I REMEMBER FEELING THE SAME WAY WHEN WE FIRST MET. WE WERE TALKING ABOUT THE PUMPS, BUT IT’S ALWAYS REFRESHING WHEN PEOPLE ARE NICE WHEN THEY MOVE INTO THE NEIGHBORHOOD. The pumps have just been the biggest issue so far. Since we’ve been here, they’ve always had something wrong. But I had to invest so much into the sign and the inside. I don’t know if you remember how it used to look. Even the shelving that was last minute… We’re still not 100% inside how we want it to be. But as we’re getting money and things are coming to us, it will slowly pan out the way we want it.
BUT THE WHOLE THING IS TRAFFIC, RIGHT? THE MORE TRAFFIC YOU GET, IF THEY COME TO YOUR STATION TO BUY GAS, THEY’RE PROBABLY BUYING THEIR SODAS OR WHATEVER FROM INSIDE… There’s no way to slide your card outside so everything’s been pre-pay. And I’ve had like three guys who really got mad at me for that. They’d come in and just start yapping or whatever, but mostly people are pretty understanding. The price reflects you having to come in a little bit to pre-pay. I know it’s a hassle for some, but since we’ve been open, maybe two or three guys who were really pissed off about it. Which I told them, ‘Hey man, you don’t have to get fuel from me…’ It is what it is, you know. I’m not some multi-millioniare here trying to get rich. You have to understand, I’m not making really any profit off that. I’m just an ordinary guy, you know. I drove a semi. I know how it is. We would pump $800, $1200 of diesel every other day. I know gas prices are a pain. Another thing I’ve noticed is a lot of people come in here on food stamps, or EBT. So they are already struggling. I could easily match the Chevron down the street and take that profit if I wanted to. But I think I’ve been very fair. I’ve been trying to be fair, you know.
IT’S GETTING HARDER AND HARDER ON YOUR END, TOO. I’M SURE THOSE TRUCKLOADS ARE COSTING MORE AND MORE ALL THE TIME… Oh yeah, It’s funny cause people when they come and they’ll see the gas prices, then they’ll complain about something in the store being more expensive. But they don’t realize that if I sold everything cheap, then this might as well be a Goodwill or a free Salvation Army store. I have to make a living. I have my little daughter to take care of. I have my parents I have to take care of. I’m just trying to survive like anyone else. People think if you’re running a gas station, you must have loads of money and whatnot. I work probably double the amount of hours anyone else works. You’re just playing with bigger numbers. I think people fail to realize that.
IT’S NOT A BIGGER TAKE HOME, NECESSARILY. Yeah, even if it is, at end of the year, you’re paying $20-to-$40,000 in taxes. That’s someone’s salary, you know. So when you look at it, it’s not that: ‘He’s probably so rich.’ We’re ordinary people. We’re not special in a way that people like to categorize just because you own something or run something they think you just automatically have so much money… That’s what I always try to people. My father-in-law, my dad, both these guys came from India, dirt houses, they both lived in houses made out of mud. They didn’t even have walls, all mud houses back in the day. You know the family was very poor, my dad did farming, my father-in-law did farming. They came to the states… It takes you a month or two thru Panama, or South America, wherever they come through. Then, they worked on the farms here, made enough to save up a little bit of money, Started working construction and saved up, saved up. You know, everyone thinks you’re just born into rich… but my dad still works, he’s in his 60s now and he’s nowhere close to thinking he’s gonna retire. Same thing with my father-in-law. There were days when these guys didn’t have food out here. They were the first ones here out of their family. Basically homeless, right, and they came here and they made it, and gave me an opportunity to stand on my feet.
RESPECT AND GRATITUDE… They didn’t know English, they didn’t know anything at all. That’s a lot of people from our Indian communities… they didn’t come here with money, they came here not knowing the language, not knowing anything, just working hard. And I feel like anyone is capable of doing it. If you really, really put your mind to it, anyone is able to achieve anything they really want.
BUT YOU GOTTA EARN IT. // INTERVIEW w/ BILL MAN
Check out the lowest gas prices in town, as of press time, at the Quik Stop at the corner of Sheridan & Perry in East Bremerton.
