RETAIL OPERATIONS
How Can You Operate a Gas Station Without Any Gas? Control your paperwork and stay in compliance to avoid finding out. BY ROY STRASBURGER
I
promise that this is not a trick question about alternative fuels, online retailing or robots. It is a meditation on a situation that we came across recently and, sadly, happens quite often in the fuel industry. Our company, StrasGlobal, provides contract site operations for retail stores around the country. Basically, our job is to operate a site at or above industry standards for a fee. The situation I’m referring to started when we were contacted by someone who had just bought a small group of convenience stores. The previous owner had been struggling, and the new owner, our client, wanted to get 12 | FMN Magazine WINTER 2021
into the retail business. He felt that by putting some capital into the stores, and with a good operator in place, he could turn the business around. We found what we normally find— decent stores suffering from neglect: dirty floors and windows, outdated foodservice offerings and sparsely stocked shelves. There were trash and weeds around the building and on the grounds. Most of the outside lights, and quite a few inside ones, were burned out. We also found that the fuel tanks were empty. This is not unusual for us. Operators will often sell down their fuel and store inventories to get the most cash
out of the business before they leave. However, in this case, we could not get the local jobber to fill the tanks. After a little digging, we found the problem. The previous owner recently had a death in the family and ended up spending time away from the business. During that period, the fuel delivery permits for the site expired, and the USTs had not been inspected. The fuel supplier could not deliver product because it is against the law to deliver fuel into tanks that have not been certified. The previous owner said the certification had slipped his mind and that he wasn’t aware that it had expired. This incident started a chain of events that impacted the sales and profitability of the store. I’m not going to say it was the cause of the stores originally being sold, but it did affect the new owner because it took us time to get the tanks inspected and certified before we could start selling fuel again. The cash flow for the new owner was lower than he had planned due to the delay in opening the pumps. FuelsMarketNews.com