Word: california
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Much will depend on whether the rest of the nation follows California in gas-buying habits. For the past three weeks, Golden State drivers have been in a kind of panic, scrambling to buy every last drop available. Lines as long as eight blocks have formed at those gas stations still open; motorists have waited three hours or more to fill up. At some stations, drivers who rose groggily at dawn to hunt for gas have had to queue up behind long lines of cars parked and locked by people who had left them there overnight. Fights with guns, knives...
...effort to calm the frenzy, 13 California counties containing more than two-thirds of the state's drivers last week adopted an allocation plan-the first government-sponsored one in the nation in five years. The plan, made possible by legislation hastily drafted by Governor Jerry Brown, is that followed widely across the nation during the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo: drivers whose license plates end with an odd number can buy gas only on odd-numbered days, with even numbers only on even-numbered days. The plan will do nothing to increase supplies, or even to reduce consumption...
...California uproar seems to have been caused more by panic psychology than by actual shortage. Atlantic Richfield officials estimate that Southern California gas stations are getting only 5% less fuel to sell this month than they did in May 1978. That relatively small shortage has been enormously magnified by two factors...
...California drivers started at the first sign of shortage to "top off' their tanks -buy a few gallons for an already mostly full tank-and thus caused a huge surge of panic demand. Secretary of the Treasury Michael Blumenthal told Congress last week that the average California gas purchase has lately been a mere $3-barely enough to fill a quarter of the tank of a compact car at today's prices. "I've had this car washed four times in six days," reported Fred Tyler as he stood beside a dripping Mercedes 280 on Santa Monica...
Instead of playing, Roberts missed several of the matches in California, as he was designated to repair the team van and do the squad's laundry. Bill Roberts' Harvard tennis career had come down to washing other people's jockstraps in a La Jolla laundromat...