Ot­to Car­ring­ton

De­spite a warn­ing from the re­cent­ly formed Own­ers’ Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion that ris­ing crime could im­pact the op­er­a­tions of 24-hour ser­vice gas sta­tions, not all deal­ers agree with this stance.

The Own­ers’ Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion was es­tab­lished just a month ago to rep­re­sent gas sta­tion own­ers. How­ev­er, an­oth­er group, the Pe­tro­le­um Deal­ers Co­op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety Lim­it­ed, which op­er­ates un­der the Pe­tro­le­um Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion and was formed by an Act of Par­lia­ment, has a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, pres­i­dent of the Pe­tro­le­um Deal­ers Co­op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety, Derek Joseph, em­pha­sised that crime af­fect­ed the en­tire na­tion, not just gas sta­tions. He added that many deal­ers were un­aware of the state­ments be­ing made on their be­half.

Joseph reaf­firmed the es­sen­tial na­ture of gas and ser­vice sta­tions, as­sur­ing that de­spite the chal­lenges posed by crime, they would con­tin­ue to serve the coun­try.

“This body, the Own­ers’ Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, as far as I un­der­stand, be­cause from the time it was hint­ed that some­body was do­ing that, I got sev­er­al calls, and I told them, well, we don’t know any­thing about it, and don’t wor­ry about it be­cause it is noth­ing le­git­i­mate. It is just sim­ply some­body think­ing that they need­ed to set up an as­so­ci­a­tion and speak on peo­ple’s be­half who nev­er asked them to speak on their be­half,” he said.

Joseph added, “Now, you see, re­mem­ber, we live in a free so­ci­ety, and if any­body feels that they want to put them­selves up or po­si­tion them­selves to be looked up­on for a po­si­tion and so on—be­cause I un­der­stand that in­di­vid­ual has po­lit­i­cal am­bi­tions—but the last time I checked, most of the deal­ers I talked to, both un­der UNIPET and NP, which work with us, said they don’t know what he’s talk­ing about.”

Pres­i­dent-elect of the Own­ers’ Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, Reval Chat­ter­goon, is­sued a me­dia re­lease on Thurs­day out­lin­ing the po­ten­tial im­pact of ris­ing crime on 24-hour ser­vice sta­tion op­er­a­tions.

The re­lease high­light­ed the dan­gers posed by crime.

How­ev­er, oth­er deal­ers have stat­ed that al­though they are al­so af­fect­ed by the crime sit­u­a­tion, they have no plans to shut down op­er­a­tions.

This week, a man was killed by po­lice at a Char­lieville gas sta­tion fol­low­ing a rob­bery. An­oth­er man was killed at a sta­tion on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, sev­er­al months ago.

De­spite these in­ci­dents, some ser­vice sta­tion own­ers re­main com­mit­ted to stay­ing open and con­tin­u­ing their op­er­a­tions.

Pe­tro­le­um Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent and ser­vice sta­tion own­er Robin Narayans­ingh al­so stat­ed that de­spite the crime sit­u­a­tion, they are con­tin­u­ing to op­er­ate.

“We have been serv­ing the com­mu­ni­ty since 1956 and we will con­tin­ue to do so. As long as we have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve the com­mu­ni­ty, I will en­sure we do so 24 hours a day, sev­en days a week,” he said.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Chat­ter­goon said his re­lease was in­tend­ed to high­light the cur­rent chal­lenges fac­ing the coun­try, not­ing that his as­so­ci­a­tion now had 18 mem­bers—ten with Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um (NP) and 8 with UNIPET.

He stat­ed, “The dif­fer­ence is that we have a spe­cif­ic fo­cus. It is not our in­ten­tion to have Own­er Deal­ers re­place Pe­tro­le­um Deal­ers. We made this clear from our first press re­lease, where we out­lined our role re­gard­ing op­er­a­tions, pric­ing struc­tures, and our en­gage­ment on pol­i­cy mat­ters with the gov­ern­ment. Own­er Deal­ers al­so rep­re­sent both NP and UNIPET deal­ers.”

He added, “So what we’re try­ing to say is, lis­ten, Mr Gov­ern­ment, we need a more ag­gres­sive ap­proach to tack­ling crime to pre­vent these kinds of out­comes. At no point did we ever say that we’re go­ing to shut down.

“Your cus­tomers are fear­ful to even come out, so it’s al­most like there’s an un­of­fi­cial cur­few. Who are you go­ing to open for in that case? And sec­ond­ly, if we con­tin­ue to be tar­gets of crim­i­nal el­e­ments, one might have to re­con­sid­er. But it’s not just gas sta­tions; this af­fects the en­tire nightlife—ven­dors, bar own­ers, restau­rants, and so on.”