From the June 26, 1979 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:

Lines at Island stations this weekend were much shorter than the previous days’ panic would have led anyone to predict. Most drivers were orderly and relaxed about the operation of the new state law that requires drivers to have less than a half tank in their cars before they can buy more.

Even those weekend visitors going off-Island were not panicked; most thought the situation here was almost a pleasure in contrast to the gas lines many left behind in their home towns, especially in Connecticut.

“Odd, even, or indifferent — it doesn’t matter,” one Enfield, Connecticut driver said as he waited at Depot Corner Mobil station for $5 worth Saturday morning. “They just aren’t open at all.”

Gas station owners and employees, most but not all of whom were diligently checking gas gauges and abiding by Governor King’s order, reported few problems either day of the weekend. But as one pump operator said with mock exasperation Saturday, “Broken gauges, broken gauges — it’s become an epidemic!”

Station owners in different parts of the Island operated their pumps slightly different. In Edgartown, both Richard Mello’s Texaco station and John Ahlbum’s Mobil station were dispensing gas with a $5 maximum for each car. And in both stations, attendants were carefully checking gauges and turning away without hesitation even those whose needles were on the line. Both stations, however, did make exceptions for drivers who could produce a same-day ferry reservation to leave the Vineyard.

Most Drivers who came to buy fuel in Edgartown waited no longer than five minutes, and no one seemed bothered. One man, who waited patiently in his gold station wagon Saturday morning, seemed delighted with the ease he found in getting through the lines. “You should have seen it yesterday! The line was all the way down to Pease’s Point Way. I waited 20 to 30 minutes,” he said. And what did he do while he waited? “I just sat, that’s what,” he declared.

Of course, there were a few who were sure they could be the exceptions to the rules for everyone. One man with New Jersey plates rolled up to the pumps at the Mobil station with more than half a tank, and tried his best to get special dispensation. Upon being told that he could not buy gas, he shifted his weight close to the attendant, and said confidentially, “Listen, I’m leaving tomorrow. If you could just...”

“You’ll have to come back tomorrow, sir,” the attendant told him firmly.

As the driver left, the young pumper broke into a grin, “Reject!”

And then there were those with the faulty gauges. They all seemed to come to Lisa Bagwell at the Mobil station. “I’ve had three or four people tell me ‘My gauge is broken.’ What can you do? I say I’ll give them gas, but if they don’t take five dollar’s worth, I’ll charge them five dollars anyway.”

In Vineyard Haven the situation was a little different. At Tisbury Texaco at the Five Corners, the lines were five and six cars long, and some drivers were a bit edgy.

Dillard Morrison, who owns a leather shop in Oak Bluffs, was with his family in their jeep on the way to the supermarket when he saw the gas being pumped and pulled in line to get some. He said he has had to change his plans because of the shortage. “I’m afraid to leave the Island to get leather in Boston. How can I go? I can’t get back.”

Michael Feldman was also at Jack Dario’s station on Saturday, looking to fill up. He was on-Island for the first time since 1958, when his grandmother owned a house on Main street in Vineyard Haven. “This was sort of a reunion for me, but now I’m worried about getting back,” he said. I’ve been waiting an hour in lines at home.”

Mr. Dario did not impose a maximum on his customers on Saturday, and his generosity allowed a woman to come back to the pumps only minutes after she had filled up. “She came back and said we didn’t fill her up all the way. So she came back in and took 60 cents worth. She said she needed every drop she could get,” Mr. Dario said.

Nelson DeBettencourt Jr. said he had no long lines at his Mobil station in Oak Bluffs, but even so he closed at 11:15 on Saturday. Mr. Debettencourt held his customers to a $5 maximum. He did not hold them to the half-tank law, however.

Ben David Motors, also in Oak Bluffs, also let the law slide. “We stopped doing it because no one else is. The boss said to fill ‘em up, no matter what,” one young attendant said.

Not only was Oak Bluffs the place to buy gas that day. Besides the short or non-existent lines there, drivers could even win the stuff. At high noon, Harold Johnson, the president of the NAACP here, was sitting at a small table selling raffle tickets for the association’s scholarship fund. First prize is 50 gallons of gas, donated by Ben David Motors. Things were going well for Mr. Johnson. “Let’s just say business has been very good. The gas has been quite an incentive,” he said.

Compiled by Hilary Wallcox

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