The owner of a Mineola auto service store owner says his life has been turned upside since an online news service reported a resident’s complaint at a village meeting that a gas station located in front of his store – but owned by another operator – had overcharged customers following Hurricane Sandy.
“Once they put that thing on Mineola Patch, people started knocking me,” said Olympos Auto Service owner Michael Maragopoulos at the Village of Mineola board meeting last week. “Even though it’s not my business, it’s the same customers. It’s like we own the gas. But we don’t own the gas.”
Several people have stopped by to confront him about the report and his cell phone was filled with angry text messages, Maragopoulos said.
Maragopoulos said he appeared at the village board meeting to explain that his auto repair business at 400 Jericho Turnpike is separate from Pro-Tec, a Gulf station that operates the gas pumps in front of his property.
“We’re not affiliated with the gas company,” Maragopoulos said. “That’s a separate business.”
To add insult to injury, he said, the price listed by the gas station was in error and did not reflect the actual price being charged.
“It looks like somebody replaced the ‘3’ with the ‘4’,” Maragopoulos said.
Resident Bill Urianek raised the issues of gas prices at a village board meeting on Dec. 5 when he presented photos he had taken there that showed a price of $4.89 a gallon.
Village of Mineola Mayor Scott Strauss said at time that the repair business and the gas station were separate businesses.
At last week’s meeting, Strauss told Maragopoulos he understood the businesses were different entities.
“We’ve been in the neighborhood for 25 years,” Maragopoulos said. “We would never price gouge our customers.
He said the adverse publicity has hurt his own auto and truck repair business.
Maragopoulos acknowledged that his relationship with the gas station was complicated by his role in sorting out problems with customers which arose at the gas tanks.
He also said that the owner of the gas, who he identified as Kumar, does not speak English.
Efforts to reach the owner of Pro-Tec were unavailing. Efforts to reach Patch by e-mail were also unavailing.
Maragopoulos said he previously operated the Getty station on a corner adjacent to his current business from 1992 until the Getty station burned down in 2007. He has operated Olympos in his current location since 2007.
He said he is trying to take a philosophic attitude about the confusion over his service business and the gas station.
“We went through some good times and some bad times here,” he said.
