Oregon’s Senate has repealed a 72-year prohibition against self-service gas, with new legislation requiring gas stations to staff half the available pumps, while allowing the rest to be self-service. The bill, responding to industry staffing shortages, also prohibits charging more for full-service than self-service, likely leading to the phasing out of full-service pumps.
I live in Washington. I remember one time crossing the border from Portland, Oregon to Vancouver, Washington. What’s funny is that Portland has two rivers. The Willamette to the South and the Columbia to the North. The Columbia is the border with Washington. During that trip I stopped for gas, and figured that since I just crossed a river I must be in Vancouver. I got out and started pumping gas only for a guy in an orange vest to come screaming at me to stop like I was about to blow the place up, which is weird because as many of you know it’s not that hard to pump gas? Turns out I was in the strip of land in Portland that’s between the Willamette and the Columbia, and so I was still in Oregon.
Just a little funny anecdote about this whole situation.