Wisconsin Gas Station Owner Forced to Raise Gas Prices

In this time of rising gas prices, it's time to revisit a recurring theme on the blog:  minimum gas price laws.  These gas price laws keep the price of gasoline at a high level to, in theory, combat predatory pricing.  In an earlier post on Minnesota's minimum gas price law, I wrote:

So gas stations are not allowed to compete for customers.   The winners will be the inefficient or unimaginative gas station owners.  The losers, of course, are the consumers as well as the efficient and imaginative gas station owners - the ones that don't need the stick of government to prop them up.   

Wisconsin has a similar silly law on its books.  One gas station owner found out what the stick of government will do when you try go against the paternalistic state (emphasis is mine below).

A service station that offered discounted gas to senior citizens and people supporting youth sports has been ordered by the state to raise its prices.

Center City BP owner Raj Bhandari has been offering senior citizens a 2 cent per gallon

But the state Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection says those deals violate Wisconsin's Unfair Sales Act, which requires stations to sell gas for about 9.2 percent more than the wholesale price.

That's a fine name for that department, don't you think?  The Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection.  Here, apparently, is one of the ways this department protected one consumer:

Dale Van Camp said he bought a $50 card to support the local youth hockey program. It would have saved him about $100 per year on gas, he said.

Call me a radical, but I think consumers are quite able to take care of themselves and don't need activists and bureaucrats to look out for their best interests, thank you very much.

Here, here, and here are other posts on Minnesota's silly gas price law.

HT to Doc for the link