The owner of a Bellaire gas station agreed to pay $50,000 to settle a price gouging complaint after the Harris County Attorney’s office accused the business of raising the price of fuel nearly 20 percent during Hurricane Beryl.
The settlement is the second reached by the county attorney’s office in the wake of the July storm. Last month, the Super Stop on North Main Street in Baytown agreed to pay $50,000 after officials said it increased prices by more than 40 percent during Beryl.
The latest settlement against BTCM Aviation LLC, Real Estate Chapter Texas LLC, and Houston Ventures LLC, which operates the Shell station at 5910 W. Loop S., was announced by the county attorney’s office Thursday
“These lawsuits filed after Hurricane Beryl show that we will not sit by while businesses try to take advantage of residents during a crisis,” County Attorney Christian D. Menefee said in a news release from his office. “We received over 250 complaints of price gouging in the days after the storm, but I hope that this serves as a warning for the future that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated here in Harris County.”
The county attorney’s office filed both lawsuits in August.
Regular unleaded gas was listed at $3.03 a gallon in Texas when the hurricane hit, according to the weekly retail gasoline and diesel price report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Two days after the storm, the county received complaints that the Bellaire Shell was charging $4.29 a gallon and then $3.79 per gallon.
According to the lawsuit, the gas station manager admitted to a county investigator that the business had received several complaints from customers and claimed upper management was responsible for setting prices.
The manager also told the investigator employees had received permission to lower the prices after the complaints.
Andrew P. McCormick, the attorney listed as representing the gas station operators, did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Hurricane Beryl left nearly 2 million without power and at least 13 dead as wind gusts reached as high as 107 mph across the Houston region. The storm initially made landfall in Matagorda Bay as a Category 1.
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