Sun Editorial: Stay in your car! Put down the gas pump: Legislators say no to self-service at gas stations

There aren’t too many times when you’ll read a pro-government-restriction opinion in this space. As you can probably tell by our previous diatribes, we mostly stand for free enterprise without restrictions.

But today, we are in a nutty mood. We’re all for keeping government restrictions in place, at least at the gas pump.

Last week, state legislators put a swift halt to a potential proposal to lift New Jersey’s gas-pumping restrictions and allow drivers to pump their own gas at the station, and we like what our elected officials have done in this case — for once.

New Jersey has banned self service at gas stations for almost 70 years, and we see no reason to change that now.

Sure, as many people have argued, having attendants pump our gas for us is in New Jersey culture. It’s part of who we are — spoiled people who don’t have to brave the heat, the cold, the rain, the wind or the snow to re-fill our gas-guzzling automobiles.

Sure, it’s nice to have a gas attendant pump our gas and provide an extra level of security when we need to fill up on a not-so-crowded road at 4 in the morning when we’re avoiding Shore traffic on a holiday weekend.

But the biggest reason we believe New Jersey shouldn’t lift the restrictions on pumping gas is because it would cost a lot of people a job.

There are thousands of people in New Jersey who have a job pumping gas. Even if it’s not a high-paying job, it still provides necessary income for those workers. Lift the ban, and these people will instantly be out of a job.

If allowing self-service gas pumping would significantly reduce prices at the pump, then our stance might be different. But estimates say the switch would only save a few cents per gallon, which means the real winners would be the gas station owners — not the drivers.

So thumbs up to the recent decision to not lift the government restriction. It might be the last time you read those words in this space.