July 3: More and more drive-offs involve stolen license plates

Thieves are finding novel ways to disguise the old gas station drive-off: They use stolen license plates to thwart identification by watching clerks or video cameras.

"Before people would just do it [drive-offs] and be on their way" using their own car plates, Chaska Police Chief Scott Knight said Tuesday. "Now people are trying to be creative."

As thefts and drive-offs increase with the gas prices in the Twin Cities -- just under $4 on Wednesday -- and across the country, retailers and police are taking action:

•Gas station employees in several Ramsey County cities have started working with a police online data base to nab the thieves.

• In Chaska, police are advising residents to park in a locked garage or under bright lights to thwart plate thieves.

•More stations are going to pre-paid gas.

Other cities, including Bismarck, N.D., and Salt Lake City, also are experiencing more drive-offs, some with stolen plates, covered plates or no plates. In New York, a man charged with stealing $34 of gasoline in May tried to elude detection by covering his plate with shaving cream. In Plymouth, some drivers stand in front of their plates to obscure the numbers.

"Clearly the number of stolen plates is increasing as gasoline prices are increasing," said Lakeville Chief Tom Vonhof. The same goes for gas drive-offs: In the past three months, he said, Lakeville had 32 drive-offs, with and without authentic plates, compared with 67 in all 2007.

The Kwik Trip station near the Interstate 494 interchange at County Rd. 6, in Plymouth has seen three or four drive-offs each week, about half with stolen plates, said station manager Micah Pieper. He said the number of gas thefts hasn't changed much in his year as manager, but the typical financial loss for stations has jumped from about $30 to $50 or more per drive-off.

"Some people hide their [real] plates in the trunk, or stand in front of their plates, they look around for cameras," Pieper said. He said a man Sunday covered all but 3 digits on his pickup plate, but that was enough to identify him because he was caught once before for stealing about $90 worth of gas for the same pickup.

The nation's 115,000 convenience gas stores lost $134 million from gas theft last year, said Jeff Lenard, spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores in Alexandria, Va. He said gas drive-offs using stolen plates or other scams have increased each spring when gas prices rise as refineries switch from winter to summer gasoline blends.

"It's not just teenage boys anymore, but people in late model SUVs, junkers and all demographic types," he said. He said he thinks $4 gas is a big motivation now, in addition to "misdirected anger" aimed at high profits of oil companies. But it is the retailer who takes the hit, not big oil companies, he noted. Retailers receive about 15 cents a gallon to cover credit card fees and expenses; but they make most of their money on food and convenience items, he said.

St. Paul has seen a few stolen plate drive-offs a month since spring, said police spokesman Peter Panos. Oakdale police said nine stolen plates have had reported so far this year compared with two in the same six months last year.

Vonhof said cities on major freeways --I-35W runs through Lakeville and Burnsville -- may be more prone to gasoline theft.

Burnsville Sgt. Dan Carlson said police find out when stolen plates are used when clerks report the drive-off plate numbers and state crime data banks indicate the plates were stolen.

Since January, clerks in six cities patrolled by the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office have been trained how to enter drive-off vehicle or suspect descriptions into a county online data base, said Sgt. Eric Bradt, who developed the unusual program. He said he's talking to police in neighboring cities about expanding the data base to include their drive-offs.

The long-term solution is widespread prepaid or credit card gas station service, said Lenard and Lance Klatt, executive director of the Minnesota Service Station Association.

Prepayment eliminates financial losses and safety hazards to clerks and pedestrians from gas thieves speeding away, Klatt noted. He said another hazard is created by thieves who leave the gas pump running when they flee a busy station. They hope clerks won't notice their exit because the store computer didn't beep to signal a completed pump transaction.

So far New Jersey and Oregon avoid theft by having state-wide laws requiring full-service attendants to pump gas, Lenard said. He said a handful of cities have prepayment rules, including Kansas City, Mo., Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Bowling Green, Ky.

In February, British Columbia became the first Canadian province requiring prepaid gas service. The measure, called Grant's Law, is named after Grant De Patie, a young service station attendant who was killed trying to stop a $12 gas drive-off in 2005, according to news reports.

At the Plymouth Kwik Trip, Pieper said two of his 12 pumps use only prepaid service and he would love to convert all of them, if his competitors would follow suit.

"It would be nice if the whole state could go prepay, but so many people don't like it," he said. "Downtown is all prepaid. But out here nobody wants to be the first to go. It's been proven that if you go prepay, people go elsewhere."

Staff librarian Roberta Hovde contributed to this report.

Jim Adams • 612-673-7658