People who choose to live in the wide open beauty of southeastern Arizona accept that long drives are a part of life; most towns along Highway 191 are several miles apart.
Which is why when the Giant gas station in Sunsites stopped selling gas last week a local gas crisis began.
“We had to siphon out of one of our other vehicles to get to Sunizona to get gas,” Lila Kline said.
The Mustang Mall is a family-owned store with two pumps outside, ten miles from Sunsites. It is now the defecto local station for people spread from south of Willcox to Elfrida.
“I was lower than a quarter tank and was like ‘please get there,’” Candi Moyer said she didn’t know the Giant station in Sunsites was closing until she arrived to fill up last week.
Shirley Brown says now she drives to Willcox to get gas because that is where most of her errands take her. She fills up her tank whenever she can because she doesn't want to be out of gas when an emergency happens.
“There's no quick trip to get gas,” she said. Brown and others said they’re worried about elderly neighbors, “I think it's really dangerous because a lot of them stay local in this area unless they go to the hospital. So I don't know how they are going to deal with that.”
Margie Eggman owns a business next door to the station.
She says the company won't tell her why they're leaving town.
“They just cut us off,” Eggman said.
The manager working at the store wouldn’t comment on why the station stopped selling gas only that the store will close next week.
