By JOHN MAZOR and MARY CUDDEHE, AP
June 8, 2008
Wallet-bitten New Yorkers paid even more at the pumps yesterday following Friday's record-breaking surge in oil prices.
Local gas stations wasted no time raising the price of a gallon of gas by as much as a dime after oil topped $139 a barrel. In many cases, gas was selling for $4.50 a gallon or more.
Drivers fumed after prices surged overnight to $4.59 at Exxon in The Bronx and $4.49 at a Getty in Long Island City.
Bronx restaurant owner Tony Robertson burned through $120 at the Gulf station at East 23rd Street and the FDR Drive to fill up his Chevrolet Avalanche truck.
"I used to drive with the air conditioning on, but now I have to leave it off," he said. "It's hurting."
Robertson said he feels the strain of high gas prices at his Bronx fish-and-chips restaurant, too.
"People spend less. They're eating out less. Customers who used to come in two or three times a week are now coming in once a week, or not at all," he said.
Gas cost $4.55 at the Shell station at Fort Hamilton Parkway and Chester Avenue in Brooklyn, convincing drivers like Gil Mendez, 45, to start leaving his green Pontiac Bonneville parked at his Bay Ridge home.
"I'm going to put the car away," he said. "Now it's like, you get your necessities and you go home. No more weekend trips."
Analysts predict that motorists will be paying more than $5 per gallon by the Fourth of July, when millions of Americans take to the roads.
