Union slates taxi company

Press, 12 July 1979, Page 3

Union slates taxi company

Casual customers at the Blue Star 24-hour service station in Moorhouse Avenue could get only regular petrol at the station yesterday, although there were thousands of litres of super grade petrol in the station’s underground tanks. The secretary of the Canterbury Drivers’ Union (Mr P. R. Liggett) said the union had discovered that the service station had 49,000 litres of super grade petrol in its tanks when it received dispensation from the union to have another

20,000 litres delivered yesterday afternoon. “We gave the company dispensation because it did not think it would have enough to supply essential users,” said Mr Liggett. Mr Liggett said the company had put up signs saying the pumps were out of order. “Next time it seeks dispensation it will have to give us the dips on the tanks,” he said. “My understanding was that the position was quite desperate.”

The manager of Blue Star Taxis (Mr K. J. Murphy) said that super grade petrol was restricted to taxis, essential users, and Ministry of Transport vehicles. Other users were restricted to regular petrol otherwise the station ran the risk of running out of super grade for the essential users and taxis. “We would have been finished tonight (Wednesday) if we had opened them up to everyone,” he said. Mr Murphy said that the company had no way of being sure that the tankerdrivers would resume work at midnight tonight.

The company had asked the union if it could have an emergency delivery because it was “getting to the situation where it needed petrol.” Mr Murphy said that the supply in the tanks before being given the 20,000 litres would have been used by this evening. The company would then have been faced with a serious situation.

Blue Star had a good record of service. “We have never turned our petrol off to the public in 40 years,” he said.