Why Jersey girls − and guys − still don’t pump their own gas
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March 29, 2024
Robert H. Scott III, Professor & Greenbaum/Ferguson/NJAR Endowed Chair in Real Estate Policy, Monmouth University -
The Conversation
New Jersey’s quirky reputation is hard earned, but one peculiarity stands out: It’s the only place in America where you can’t pump your own gas.
Laws against self-service gasoline used to be common: In the late 1960s, nearly half the states in the U.S. had one. But as fuel dispensers became safer and credit cards made paying at pumps possible, those states began to reconsider. By the early 1990s, nearly four out of five gas stations nationwide were self-serve.
For decades, Oregon and New Jersey were the last two holdouts. But Oregon loosened its restrictions against gas station self-service in 2018 and ultimately reversed its ban in 2023.
That leaves the Garden State. Its self-service ban, which went into effect in 1949, has a colorful history: It was born of a thuggish, Sopranosesque effort to thwart competition. In the late 1940s, a man named Irving Reingold opened a self-service station in Hackensack, offering gasoline at a lower price than his competitors. Those competitors tried to intimidate Reingold – complete with a drive-by gas-station shooting. When that didn’t work, they formed an alliance and proposed the self-service ban.
Despite the ban’s unsavory origins, New Jersey residents seem to like it. Nearly three out of four New Jerseyans oppose lifting the ban, a 2022 Rutgers poll found. That same year, a Monmouth University poll found that a slight majority would support allowing self-service gasoline, but only if the state required all gas stations to offer full service as an alternative. If the state didn’t do that, then 60% said they’d support maintaining the current ban.
State politicians are clearly paying attention. When asked about the self-service ban in 2019, Gov. Phil Murphy said that trying to reverse it would be “political suicide.” Former New Jersey Govs. Chris Christie, a Republican, and Jon Corzine, a Democrat, met the same resistance and also never pushed the issue. Self-service gas stations may be the most bipartisan public policy issue in New Jersey.
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