STATE
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
A9
Self-service fueling allowed in Oregon through April 11
By Les Zaitz
Oregon Capital Bureau
As the new coronavirus
took hold in Oregon, work-
ers who perform one of life’s
most routine jobs — pump-
ing gas — started to panic.
In Pacific City, visitors in
town for the first weekend of
spring break swarmed one
service station, prompting
employees to walk off the
job and forcing the station
to close.
Across the state, ser-
vice station owners started
reporting growing fear and
dwindling work forces.
“We have employees
that are sick, uncomfort-
able about coming to work
and staying home to take
care of their kids,” one sta-
tion owner wrote in an email
shared by the Oregon Fuels
Association. “This is creat-
ing a manpower shortage.”
Company after company
in the early days of the pan-
demic’s spread in Oregon
reported challenges keeping
stations open.
On Saturday, Oregon
State Fire Marshal Jim
Walker suspended the state’s
ban on self-service fueling,
an order in place through at
EO Media Group file photo
Aaron Roark pumps gas at the Sinclair station in Pendleton. Self-service fueling is allowed
throughout Oregon through April 11.
least April 11.
Rudy Owens, a public
affairs specialist in Walk-
er’s office, said a devel-
oping “critical shortage of
workers” led to the decision,
made in collaboration with
Gov. Kate Brown. He said
there was growing worry
that essential workers who
need to drive to get to work,
such as health care work-
ers and police and medics,
would run out of places to
fuel up.
“In certain parts of Ore-
gon, if attendants are
unavailable, there is no gas,”
Owens said. “Our hope is
this is going to be very short
term and that there is no
harm.”
Owens said Oregonians
who elect to pump their own
gas have to take the same
precaution they do with
touching any other poten-
tially contaminated ser-
vice, whether it’s a grocery
store cart or the door to a
store. He said sanitizing and
hand washing will be essen-
tial because station workers
won’t be able to clean pump
nozzles after every custom-
er’s use.
Mike Freese, a lobbyist
for the Oregon Fuels Associ-
ation, said that station own-
By Jake Thomas
Oregon Capital Bureau
By Dick Hughes
For the Oregon Capital
Bureau
Gov. Kate Brown said the
far-reaching executive order
she issued this week should not
stop immediate families from
motoring for relaxation or driv-
ing to a trailhead, as long as
they maintain proper social dis-
tancing while hiking.
“The goal here is to limit
your social circles. The goal is
to stay away from crowds. The
goal is to maintain social dis-
tancing,” Brown said of Ore-
gon’s efforts to stem the spread
of COVID-19.
Oregon State Police Super-
intendent Travis Hampton
noted that most campgrounds
and boat ramps are closed, so
Oregonians and visitors should
research their plans before
heading out. In a letter sent to all
police agencies in Oregon, he
emphasized that Brown’s order
was not close to martial law.
People don’t need documenta-
tion showing they are traveling
legally to or from work or other
permitted activities.
“There are no curfews and
a person’s movements are not
restricted under the Governor’s
Executive Order,” Hampton
wrote. “While details are offered
in the order relating to social dis-
tancing, specific business clo-
sures and non-essential social
gatherings, [Oregonians’] move-
ments are generally unrestricted.”
Motorists should not be
pulled over under suspicion of
violating the executive order.
“If, however, you are commit-
Capital Bureau file photo
Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum
ment, two were sent to 7-11 stores
for charging excessive prices for sur-
gical masks. One store is located at
4715 NE Columbia Blvd. in Portland.
The other is located at 2002 Lancaster
Drive NE in Salem.
Phone numbers listed for each of
the 7-11 stores were not functional. A
message sent to an email address for
media inquires on 7-11’s corporate
website Thursday afternoon was not
immediately answered.
Another letter accused the AM-PM
convenience store at 501 Lancaster
Drive NE in Salem of selling exces-
sively priced bottled water. No one
answered the phone at a number for
the store listed online, and the call did
not go to voicemail.
A fourth letter was sent to Keizer
Food Market at 4495 River Road N.,
for excessively raising its price of toi-
let paper. Luke Peca, store manager,
denied the accusation.
“We don’t even sell toilet paper,”
another company with 21
stations reported, “My man-
agers are extremely con-
cerned about getting people
who are willing and feel safe
enough to come to work.”
The executive said one-
fourth of its work force was
off sick.
“We have one very busy
station. We have only three
employees. They are all
sick,” another owner wrote.
In another location, “We
have five employees, four
of them called sick and the
fifth was not comfortable to
work out of concern for him-
self and his grandmother at
home. We ended up closing
the station.”
Romain said Saturday
that stations have already
closed in several cities,
including Lake Oswego,
Eugene, Government Camp,
Clatskanie and Hood River.
Oregon and New Jersey
are the only states to ban
self-service gasoline. Ore-
gon, however, allows excep-
tions. In 2016, residents in
rural counties with popula-
tions under 40,000 gained
the right to pump their own
fuel at night. Last year,
they were allowed to fuel
anytime.
Brown says goal of stay-home
order is to maintain social
distancing and avoid crowds
Oregon attorney general targets four stores for
excessive price hikes of essentials during outbreak
The Oregon Department of Justice
is accusing four convenience stores of
price-gouging on sales of toilet paper,
bottled water and surgical masks.
The agency on Tuesday issued
cease-and-desist letters to two stores
in Salem and one each in Keizer
and Portland that said they were
charging an “unconscionably exces-
sive price” for goods that have been
in high demand during the coronavi-
rus outbreak.
Last week Gov. Kate Brown
declared an “abnormal disruption to
the Oregon marketplace” because of
the coronavirus pandemic. The decla-
ration followed reports of stores sell-
ing out of toilet paper and hand sani-
tizer or selling these and other items at
exorbitant prices.
Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum
can use the state’s consumer pro-
tection laws against companies that
increase the price of essential prod-
ucts by 15% or more. Essential prod-
ucts include food, fuel, water, clean-
ing products and medical supplies and
services.
Since setting up a price-goug-
ing hotline on March 16, the Justice
Department received over 100 phone
calls and complaints, according to
spokeswoman Kristina Edmunson.
The letters don’t specify how much
stores were charging for essential
goods. They notify each store that the
department has received one or more
complaint about them charging exces-
sive prices and orders them to stop.
The letters also warn that the attorney
general may seek civil penalties of up
to $25,000 per violation and require
businesses to pay restitution to injured
consumers.
Of the letters issued by the depart-
ers would use attendants to
clean equipment as possible
“but there is no assurance
the equipment will get san-
itized after every use.”
The
association
approached Brown’s office
on Thursday, March 19, ask-
ing that the state’s ban be
lifted.
“Many gas attendants are
unable to come to work due
to sickness, access to chil-
dren issues (with children at
home) as well as the plethora
of issues people are facing
right now,” Freese and his
lobbying partner, Danelle
Romain, wrote in an email
to two of Brown’s staffers.
“This is an emergency.”
The following day, the
association shared reports
it was getting from station
owners across the state. The
reports came before state
authorities started listing a
rapidly increasing number
of Oregonians testing posi-
tive for COVID-19.
One company with 24
stations said one-third of its
workers were off duty and
that “employees are unwill-
ing to continue face-to-face,
hand-to-hand contact with
customers.”
An
executive
with
he said.
Edmunson said in an email that the
department has followed up on many
complaints by contacting the busi-
ness or sending out an investigator.
She said that businesses often don’t
understand the state’s price-gouging
laws and will lower prices after being
contacted.
“If we are not satisfied, we will fol-
low-up with a cease-and-desist letter,”
she said. “We have been monitoring
the complaints closely and will proba-
bly be sending more out.”
The declaration also applies to
online retailers. Rosenblum was one
of 33 state attorneys general who
signed a letter sent on Wednesday to
Amazon, Craigslist, eBay, Facebook
and Walmart warning them that they
aren’t exempt from state price-goug-
ing laws. The letter cited one inci-
dent where a two-liter bottle of hand
sanitizer was sold online for $250 on
Craigslist.
ting a traffic violation or crime
that would be enforced inde-
pendent of the order, you may
be stopped, like any other day,”
he wrote.
In her executive order,
Brown said the need for a strong
“Stay Home, Save Lives” direc-
tive was reinforced by seeing
that crowds had gathered last
weekend at the Oregon Coast,
Smith Rock State Park, Colum-
bia River Gorge and other
places in defiance of social dis-
tancing guidelines.
State parks, public and pri-
vate campgrounds, and many
other recreation sites now are
closed, either under the gover-
nor’s order or voluntarily. Ore-
gonians are allowed to go out-
side for recreation so long as
they maintain appropriate social
distancing — at least six feet,
except for family members liv-
ing in the same residence.
Oregon’s beloved ocean
beaches are not closed, but get-
ting there – legally – could be
problematic.
“The state parks clo-
sure doesn’t impact the ocean
shore, but it does close all state
park-managed parking lots and
beach accesses,” said Liz Merah
of the Governor’s Office. “The
Oregon Parks and Recreation
Department has the authority to
close the beach temporarily for
health reasons.”
And that department said in
the FAQs posted online, “If peo-
ple don’t get the message that
clumping up and overwhelming
local areas is a bad idea, we’ll
have to revisit the decision to
leave all beaches open.”
State will release more COVID-19 data making Oregon’s response more transparent
legislators and the public
with “a clear data-based stan-
dard” for making changes
to the executive order and
“additional information on
health care system capac-
ity, with regular updates
on COVID-19 hospitaliza-
tions including patient acu-
ity data and recovery rates to
ensure executive and legis-
lative actions are responsive
to maintaining systemwide
resilience and readiness.”
“With this, we urge an
approach that continues to
protect public health while
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7am-
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Friday
8am
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Friday Sharpe
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Apppointments
available
limiting harm to the econ-
omy, by communicating with
the public that these are tem-
porary measures that will be
re-evaluated within a clear
framework as circumstances
change,” the letter said.
On Wednesday, Brown
announced that Oregon hos-
pitals had 2,028 available
non-ICU beds, 394 available
ICU beds and 608 available
ventilators. “And there will
be more information coming
soon,” she said.
State officials report
that COVID-like symp-
toms make up a small pro-
portion of visits to hospi-
tal emergency rooms, but
the percentage has been
increasing.
A MAN
WAKES
UP in the
morning
after sleeping on...
an advertised bed, in advertised
pajamas.
He will bathe in an ADVERTISED TUB, shave with an ADVERTISED RAZOR,
have a breakfast of ADVERTISED JUICE, cereal and toast, toasted in an
ADVERTISED TOASTER, put on ADVERTISED CLOTHES and glance at his
ADVERTISED WATCH. He’ll ride to work in his ADVERTISED CAR, sit at an
ADVERTISED DESK and write with an ADVERTISED PEN. Yet this person
hesitates to advertise, saying that advertising doesn’t pay. Finally, when his
non-advertised business is going under, HE’LL ADVERTISE IT FOR SALE.
Then it’s too late.
AND THEY SAY ADVERTISING DOESN’T WORK?
DON’T MAKE THIS SAME MISTAKE
Advertising is an investment, not an expense. Think about it!
Blue Mountain Eagle
S181017-1
wide executive order issued
Monday that closes more
businesses and imposes
greater social distancing
restrictions.
“While we broadly sup-
port this action, we also
believe it comes with an
obligation on behalf of the
Governor’s office to ensure
this order is bolstered with
additional access to infor-
mation in order to be carried
out in a clear and transparent
manner,” the letter said.
The state representatives
asked that Brown provide
S181015-1
Oregon officials will
begin releasing more data
about the march of the coro-
navirus pandemic.
Gov. Kate Brown told
reporters during a confer-
ence call on Wednesday that
she has ordered the Oregon
Health Authority to share
“all COVID-19 information
with the public that does
not compromise patient pri-
vacy.” That includes more
exact age ranges of patients,
hospitalization status and
the number of available hos-
pital beds and ventilators for
COVID-19 patients.
Legislators,
journal-
ists and others have asked
repeatedly for data that track
the current situation. The
OHA only had been releas-
ing cumulative data from
Jan. 24, plus daily updates
on confirmed cases, testing
and deaths.
Oregon House Repub-
licans sent Brown a let-
ter responding to her state-
S181013-1
139101
By Dick Hughes
For the Oregon Capital
Bureau
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