Gas prices have gotten so high that one gas station in Massachusetts has stopped selling fuel in protest of the record-high prices.

Reynold Gladu, the owner of Ren's Mobil in Amherst, Massachusetts, told Western Mass News, “It’s hard enough for people to put groceries on their table after working in the factory or wherever they work for 30-40 hours a week and not be able to put gas in their car and get to work. I don’t want to be part of that.”

As of Friday morning, average gas prices in Massachusetts had spiked to $5.033 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).

Ren’s Mobil has been a fixture in Amherst since the 1970s, but Gladu stopped selling gas as fuel hit close to $5 per gallon in the area, Western Mass News reported. Now a cardboard sign that reads “out of gas” has been placed on the pumps outside his station, the news outlet said.

The move by Gladu comes as the national average gas price is just pennies away from $5 a gallon, with at least 19 states already surpassing that mark and California over the $6 a gallon threshold.

According to Gladu, the reason for stopping the sale of gas was the sudden and significant price increase that occurred a few weeks earlier.

“Two weeks ago, they came in on a Friday, they came in and said they put the price up 20 cents the following day, which was a Saturday, they said gas is up another 20 cents right off the bat bells went off in my head. I said how can it go up 40 cents in less than 24 hours.”

He continued to tell Western Mass News that he would start to sell gas again when they [fuel companies] “consider stop robbing the public and that’s what it is highway robbery.”

Western Mass News did receive a statement from Exxon Mobil that read in part, “ExxonMobil does not own or operate any retail fuels stations in the United States. Service stations are individually owned and price their fuel based on local market competition and other business factors.”

The price of gas has spiked as demand increases amid the summer travel season, the Russia-Ukraine war, supply issues, and inflation woes.

As of Friday early morning, crude oil was trading at $122 a barrel, according to OilPRice.com.

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A gas station ran out of fuel in Smyrna, Georgia, one of several incidences of shortages after a cyberattack shut down a key fuel pipeline AFP / Elijah Nouvelage
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