Nyasia Smith works for DeBettencourt’s garage in Oak Bluffs. On Wednesday, she was working the gas pumps, but on other days she also works behind the counter ringing customers up for gas, coffee and snacks.

Recently, however, traffic at the gas station has started to lag.

“It’s really slowed down a lot,” she said. “No one is really coming in. We went from being so busy to only needing two people working at a time, to we barely need one person. And even then it’s only five cars coming through every hour, if that.”

Normally, one employee works the register indoors and two work the pumps. But in the interest of minimizing the chances of exposure,

DeBettencourt’s has put a hold on their self-service coffee station.

“If they can stay in their cars rather than entering the store if they don’t have to, then that’s best,” Ms. Smth said. “We can do everything with less contact and less traffic.”

The lack of customers has brought uneasy feelings about the future, she added.

“It might cause future problems if people have to be laid off. They might have to choose the workers because there are not hours to give or work to do.

We just hope for things to get better or that it can get better and that it all doesn’t have to come to all of us being laid off at some point.”

—Aaron Wilson