Why does nj have gas attendants

I remember being told that there were strict rules governing what containers you could use, and it felt borderline illegal to squat on the ground and fill up a bottle with gasoline. I got out of the car and started to do my thing, and I had to be told by some teenager waving a filthy windshield wand to get back in my car. New Jersey passed the Retail Gasoline Dispensing Safety Act and Regulations in , a response to the perceived risk associated with the rapidly growing number of motorists having to handle highly flammable gasoline.

On paper, before the downfall of casual smoking and before pumps were fitted with an assortment of safety features, that was, in all fairness, potentially risky. Show the supply chain who's boss Get a head start on your holiday shopping at Amazon, Target, Best Buy, and more. For one, those self-serve stations often have no attendants at all to pump gas, which leaves customers like wheelchair users and senior citizens in a tough spot when it comes time to refuel.

It would be incredibly helpful and inclusive, actually, if every station was required to offer some sort of service for this reason. In light of new legislation that could repeal the self-serve ban, we've updated our timeline of how it came to be.

The Garden State self-service gas station ban dates back to , when the New Jersey Legislature passed the Retail Gasoline Dispensing Safety Act , citing concerns about the safety of consumers pumping petroleum themselves. Star-Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine, however, says safety concerns were a cover story.

It was really about price protection , he wrote last year. It didn't take long for the self-serve prohibition to become a legal issue. Two gas station owners challenged New Jersey's ban on self-serve stations in court, calling the prohibition "oppressive," according to The Wall Street Journal. The New Jersey Supreme Court, siding with the state, ruled that self-serve gasoline was "dangerous in use. For decades, the majority of gas stations in the United States remained full-service, but by the late s, every state in the union except for Oregon and New Jersey had overturned their ban on self-service stations.

They remain the lone holdouts — but that could change. File photo Tony Kurdzuk. Then-assemblyman Gerald Cardinale, a Republican, introduced legislation to overturn the prohibition on self-service gas stations. Cardinale, in the Assembly and later in the state Senate, made numerous attempts over the years to repeal Jersey's self-serve ban. I love the fact that it is illegal to pump your own gas in New Jersey, but why is this a law? Here are a few interesting facts about this law, according to MentalFloss.

Dave Published: January 21, Share on Facebook Share on Twitter. The state of New York overall does allow for self-service gas stations, but Huntington, New York has banned the service. All gas stations in the city are completely full-service. The city of Huntington is reputed to have fire safety on their mind with keeping this law in effect. The law has been in place since the early s. Violations to this law include fines.

New Jersey New Jersey is one of two states where you can't pump your own gas, and it has been that way since Oregon Oregon is the second of two states where you can't pump your own gas.