Unsurprisingly for a new-build Safeway, this store has an attached S Express (
no, not that S Express) gas station. This one's a bit odd, though -- I've never seen a Safeway gas station advertising non-ethanol gas anywhere else, and the non-electronic price displays are a weird blast from the past from one of the first brands that I ever saw use LED gas price signs. The paint scheme is surprisingly classy for Safeway gas, too!
My understanding it is that it is not legal to sell non-ethanol mixed fuel in Houston and surrounding areas for environmental reasons. That said, Buc'ees does advertise ethanol free gas on billboards in Houston so I don't know how they are getting around that restriction since others aren't selling ethanol-free gasoline. It might be some kind of loophole or maybe their stores are far enough outside of Houston to be able to sell it legally. I don't know. Anyway, I don't know if similar restrictions exist in Seattle and if Puyallup is far enough away to have different rules.
ReplyDeleteThat is very strange that this new location still has manual price signs. Manual price signs are very rare around here these days even at older gas stations which saw better days even 20 years ago much less today. It is really quite shocking to see that!
I don't think Seattle has restrictions like that -- there are some stations around here selling (insanely expensive) non-ethanol fuel. It just doesn't seem to be a popular thing, and definitely something that isn't mainstream enough for it to be a common sight at major chain gas stations!
DeleteI can only imagine the old-fashioned price signs are a result of sign restrictions. While the Seattle area doesn't normally have particularly stringent sign regulations compared to some areas, banning LED signs has become pretty popular. Most of those bans have a specific carve-out for gas price signs and similar things, but maybe Puyallup's sign code doesn't. There are other gas stations in the city with LED signs, but there seem to be significantly more with manual signs than I'm used to seeing elsewhere in the region, so maybe the places that have them just predate the regulation.