Other than you and myself....
I feel for the people that did lose their jobs so far. But it would be nice to get a 30 - 40 cent break on gas here in London sometime.
N.W.T. lotto winner's luck worries gas station owners
$11M winner slashed pump prices at his station
A multimillion-dollar lottery win by a service station owner in Fort Smith in the Northwest Territories has his competitors fearing his good fortune is driving them out of business.
Competing service station owners in Fort Smith, a town of 2,300 on the N.W.T.-Alberta border, say Barkley Heron has kept his pump prices lower than anyone else in the territory since his Lotto 6-49 win on Oct. 27.
"You really cannot compete with a piggy bank that has approximately $11 million in it," Roger Rawlyk, who owns one of the town's other three gas stations, told CBC News on Monday.
Rawlyk said he could be out of business in a matter of weeks, thanks to Heron's $1-a-litre gas. It's quite a deal by N.W.T. standards: gas runs up to $1.24 a litre in Yellowknife, while it's $1.19 in Hay River.
But Heron offered an even better deal — 50 cents a litre — on the night of Oct. 27, upon learning that he was one of two winners of the $22-million jackpot. Vehicles lined up late into the night to take advantage of the price until his pumps ran dry.
"The 50-cents-a-litre thing was OK," said Gordon Villeneuve, who owns the gas bar across the street from Heron.
"He said, 'OK, well, I'm giving my customers a break.' Well, everybody's had a break now. We've had a good break. Thanks a lot, and OK, let's get back to normal here now."
Villeneuve said he's already had to lay off two employees, and he had to reduce his own prices to try to keep his customers.
Heron said he is just trying to give back to his community in the best way he knows how — something he has wanted to do for a long time, even before he struck it rich, he said.
"To me there's no issue," Heron said. "Instead of making a huge profit off of my gas, I make what I think a person should be making off of gas sales. And that's it."
Heron said he expects his prices to rise as fuel becomes more expensive, but he still plans to keep his gas as inexpensive as possible.
Still, competitors like Rawlyk said the price war raging in Fort Smith isn't fair.
"I don't think it's in my nature, in my character … however you want to describe it, to do something as mean-spirited as what I think is happening here in this community, potentially putting two businesses and many more out of business," he said.