Gas Pumps

Community leaders say they will oppose a plan today by a convenience store chain to expand its Severn outlet and add gas pumps, saying added traffic and the possibility of a fuel explosion endanger their neighborhood.Cloverland Farms Dairy Inc. wants to build a 2,880-square-foot Royal Farms store, an adjacent 1,620-square-foot retail space and install two pump islands on about one acre at Routes 174 and 170, according to applications filed with the Department of Planning and Code Enforcement (PACE)

A handful of neighbors told the Howard County Board of Appeals last week that they are worried about plans to demolish Bill's Ranch Exxon in Ellicott City and construct a new facility.The new Exxon on Montgomery Road near Long Gate Center would be a more modern building with a canopy, eight gas pumps and a convenience store. The gas station would no longer employ a full-time mechanic and would abandon its bay facility.Residents fear the gas station and convenience store would increase traffic and that the lighting from the station's canopy would reflect onto neighboring properties.

Business people planning to build a downtown convenience store, sandwich shop and gas station got a look last night at the Westminster Historic District Commission's ideas on how to make it fit the neighborhood.Stanley H. "Jack" Tevis III, president of Tevis Oil Co., and his mother, Dorothy Tevis, the board chairwoman, said they would have their engineers and architects look at a commission sketch but made no commitment. They plan to build a 24-hour Jiffy Mart and Subway sandwich shop with a drive-through window and gas pumps on an unused lot at West Main and Carroll streets.

IT MAY SEEM ODD, but the current Iraqi crisis could have a silver lining for Baltimore city.If the simmering conflict escalates, more than just Kuwait and Iraqi oil could be taken off the world market. Oil fields in Saudi Arabia, Iran and the other Persian Gulf states could have their production reduced or even stopped.How could this help Baltimore? Think back to the oil crisis of 1974-1975. In response to lines at gas pumps and larcenous prices for home heating oil, energy-efficient homes and public transit use came into vogue.

The only corner of Ritchie Highway and Jumpers Hole Road without a gas station soon will be getting one. But one of the occupied corners will become unoccupied.The Crossroads Exxon station, which three years ago moved from the southeast corner to the northeast corner of the intersection during a bitter fight between the oil company and the station owner, is moving back to its former site.Rus Warfel, a lawyer who represents Exxon, said the company decided to move back because the original location has more space.

WASHINGTON - Standing alongside a row of gas pumps at a Shell station, Rocky Twyman joined hands with several cohorts, prayed to God for economic and social relief then sang "We Shall Overcome" - inserting the lyrics "We'll have lower gas prices" the second time around. For nearly a month, Twyman, a Rockville resident who serves as music director for a Baltimore church, has been praying at gas pumps - and anywhere else he is welcome - asking God to lower prices. Of course, since he started his prayer campaign, or what he calls a movement, the price of gas just keep inching upwards.

An Eastern Shore man pumped gasoline into the car in which his estranged wife was sitting and then set it on fire Friday night, causing an explosion and sending both to the hospital, according to Maryland State Police. An arrest warrant was issued for Pernell Clanton Jr., 47, of the 100 block of Forest Drive in Grasonville, charging him with attempted first- and second-degree murder, first- and second-degree assault, reckless endangerment, first-degree malicious burning, first- and second-degree arson, and two counts of malicious destruction of property over $500.

Even critics who disagree with Stanley H. "Jack" Tevis III's plan to put a gas station and small grocery store in downtown Westminster have nothing negative to say about the man himself.Mr. Tevis, 48, the third generation of his family to head Tevis Oil Inc., a local heating oil and gasoline business, has a reputation as a nice guy. He also has a reputation as an astute businessman who is quick to spot an opportunity and turn it into dollars.His plan to put a gas station and large convenience or small grocery store on the Farmers Supply Co. Inc. property at Liberty and West Green streets sparked a public debate over what downtown Westminster should become.

You no longer have to turn your head or hold your breath while you pump gas at Carl Adair's Amoco service station on Greenmount Avenue.The pumps at Adair's place and 11 other Amoco stations in the Baltimore area have been fitted with new nozzles that prevent foul-smelling gasoline vapors from escaping into the air during fill-ups.Amoco Oil Co., seeking to capitalize on public concerns about the Baltimore area's smoggy air, announced yesterday that it has begun putting pollution-curbing nozzles on the gas pumps at all 120 of its service stations in and around the city.