1. There’s been a fire at Brand Depot. Lets hope a starving retailer wasn’t trying to get some insurance back before departing on a midnight clear.
- One store sustained fire damage with as many as a dozen more shops affected by smoke and subsequent water damage.
ACT Policing and ACT Fire Brigade investigators are yet to determine the cause of the fire.
ACT Policing has posted a static guard at the scene until AFP Forensic Services expected arrival tomorrow (August 27).
It is expected some areas of the Brand Depot complex will be closed to members of the public for a period of time tomorrow morning to allow investigators to complete their analysis of the scene.
2. There’s going to be a petrol forum addressing people driving away without paying for fuel.
Sometime in late October they’ll have a chat about letting petrol stations email in their theft reports (fax is currently required).
Interestingly strategic closing of pumps is a strategy referred to. Perhaps not a conspiracy against tight-arse Tuesday after all?
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What’s Your opinion?
Police Wrap – 27 August
That would suffice.
Maybe we need Stocks placed in the city for the petrol thieves?
Hang on, why are we talking about making it harder for the legitimate law abiding owner/ driver to fill us a car?
Surely the real solution is that anyone caught goes to gaol for five years. No questions asked. End of story.
I’m sick of society being disadvantaged by having to cater for a small amount of miscreants.
My Hyundai takes about that.
Woolies/Caltex at Gungahlin? I just pull up at the pump 11pm+-. Maybe its the old Corrolla,
45 litres if I’m running on fumes.
I reckon most petrol outlets aren’t keen on “pay before you pump” as it would mean noone would go into the shop (as they’d pay at the bowser) and buy their over priced retail items.
It’s a bit like the petrol station owners complaining about “high priced credit card commissions” when they are apparently happy to spend money securing their shop against the armed theft of cash (noone bothers restaurants anymore as they don’t have any cash).
I don’t like the idea of credit card swipe prepaid system because many people pay by cash. In a lot of cases you ‘fill’ to the tank is full, and yes other people just ‘put $20 in’.
Closing pumps in the middle of the day IS a strategy against tight-arse tuesday!
caf said :
It takes all of 2 seconds to look at a photo and see if it matches the person. Remember you only need to look at the photo and a hologram, its not a nightclub – so no DOB. After working in the liquor industry – i know you can spot a fake license pretty damn quickly
Not sure about other servos but the Woolies/Caltex one at Gungahlin requires you to pay for your fuel (or at least swipe your CC) before you fill up after I think 9pm at night. You have to go and see the console operator first at the little window, you aren’t allowed inside the building.
If this system was to operate 24/7 then hardly anybody would buy the overpriced cans of Coke and packets of chips and servos would go broke trying to rely solely on profit from petrol.
On a side note why are people so stupid as to pay the rip-off prices for Coke etc at the servos but whinge their brains out (and drive off) when petrol goes up a few cents a litre?
All Danman and Davo111’s solutions would do is to create an incentive to steal numberplates and drivers licences, respectively. (How closely do you think the bored checkout operator is going to check the photo on the thousandth license they’ve seen that day?)
The technology for electronic payment before filling up has been available for years. I can remember driving into servos in Italy in 1986 and feeding thousand lira notes into the bowsers to get petrol. And the EFTPOS swipey things have been at Mobil stations for years, though I remember that not long after they were introduced they were quickly taped over. I’ve used one somewhere though in recent times.
I reckon you should hand your drivers licence through a slot in the glass. The guy immediately puts the licence in a slot* for that pump ( a bit like hotel keys + power supply). When you pay, your license is returned to you.
* the slots are in plain sight behind the counter so nobody can ‘scan’ them
Jimbocool – hassle city – population anyone using teh servo.
Automatic NumberPlate Recognition is teh way to go – scan entering cars – also retractable road spikes on all entries/exits….
Surefire disincentive
Re #2 drive offs can be simply addressed by adopting the same method used by the Americans. In the US you pay for your petrol before you fill up – you go in, give the panel operator your money and say ‘$40 on pump six'”. You go and pump your ‘gas’ and it either cuts out at $40, or if you use less than that you go back in and get your change. All pumps also have credit card facilites in them so you can just pay by card at the pump.
Given that Australian petrol stations were the original ‘driving force’ behind the takeup of eftpos, it surprises me that there isn’t a pay at the pump option here.