The city’s BP stations are barely hanging on.
Independently owned but tarnished by the BP name, the gas stations may not last through the spill-inspired boycott.
“If business doesn’t get any better, I’m going to have to shut down,” said Gull Khan, owner of a BP station on Flatlands Avenue in Brooklyn.
Business has fallen by 30 percent a week since the end of May, when a national boycott to protest the oil giant’s role in the Gulf spill gained momentum, Khan said.
“My employee had a shirt with the [BP] logo and someone screamed, ‘Bird killer!’ and ‘You’re killing the environment!’ ” he said.
“I had to drop the price from $2.95 to 2.79 a gallon to try and bring in customers.
“If business declines another 10 percent, I have to get out.”
All over, BP stations are feeling the pinch, said Jeff Lenard, spokesman for the Association for Convenience & Petroleum Retailing.
“What most are seeing is a silent boycott,” he said. “Customers are just melting away from the stores.”
So far, none of BP’s 11,000 retailers has gone under, but on average, they are seeing a 20 percent drop in sales, said the BP Amoco Marketers Association.
BP is working with station owners by reducing fees and providing signs that say “locally owned and operated,” said BP spokesman Scott Dean.
Throughout the city, many BP stations have been splashed with brown paint. Others have just had to endure daily harassment and protests.
“Some people stop and say you are in big trouble,” said Bill Faraci, 55, manager of the BP station on East 149th Street in The Bronx.
He nervously eyed the BP signs at the station.
“They are within reach of vandals,” he said.
Tyson Slocum, a petroleum analyst with the advocacy group Public Citizen and organizer of the boycott, said the effort’s goal wasn’t to hurt small-business owners.
“The goal is to send a clear message to BP and shareholders that criminal negligence in America is no longer going to be tolerated,” he said.
“BP ought to allow [owners] to break their franchise contracts.”
Additional reporting by Reuven Fenton