Rising Gas Prices Impact Sarasota, Bradenton Businesses

SARASOTA-BRADENTON, FL — Gas prices continue to rise throughout Florida and the United States with no signs of relief in sight. As of Monday, the average cost of gas was $4.25 per gallon of regular unleaded gas in the U.S. and $4.21 in Florida, according to AAA.

While the average in the Sarasota and Bradenton areas is slightly lower than Florida and the U.S., the region is still hitting record gas prices.

On Monday, the price of regular unleaded gas and diesel was the highest the area has ever seen at $4.20 and $4.90 per gallon, respectively, according to AAA. Meanwhile, the cost of a gallon of mid-grade gas in the region is $4.53 and premium gas is $4.80.

Just one week ago, the average for regular unleaded gas in Sarasota and Bradenton was about $3.57.

Small business owners and workers are already feeling significant financial impacts as gas prices surge.

Dana Ritter, owner of R&R Home Services, a landscaping company, is troubled by the rising costs at the gas pump.

“My business is driven by fuel and parts, and when I have to pay darn near $5 a gallon for ethanol-free gas for my equipment, I have to pass that on to my customers, because I can’t stay in business if I don’t,” she told Patch.

Ritter also plans to renegotiate some of her long-term contracts, which are locked into specific pricing based on her expenses at the time they were signed.

“As the gas prices are rising daily, I’m still doing the same amount of work for less money, and it costs me more to provide that service for these people,” she said.

The food truck industry has been hit hard by the cost of gas, as well, Lora Rust Wolters, owner of Smokin Momma Lora’s BBQ, told Patch.

She already knows of two owners who are selling their food truck because of the issue. While they’ve been struggling with staffing and other challenges, the rising gas prices pushed them over the edge, she said. And she’s worried that more trucks should shut down.

Wolters is also planning ways to adapt her own food truck business as gas prices continue to soar, including increasing fees for private event bookings.

“Unfortunately, it’s the only way,” she said.

And though she typically travels throughout Sarasota and Manatee counties for events and to park in apartment complexes and HOA-led neighborhoods, she’ll be limiting where she goes for the near future.

“I’ll keep it local to Sarasota and Bradenton for a while. I’ll stick to a 25-mile radius,” Wolters said.

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Bradenton resident Lindsie Walker, a manager for a Sarasota-based restaurant and catering company, spends a lot of time in her car delivering orders for meetings and events.

“I’m in catering and use my own car for deliveries, therefore I drive a lot,” she told Patch. “I also have deliveries from Venice to Riverview. I deliver to Riverview twice a week. Currently, I go through about $15 in gas per day.”

Prior to the recent surge in gas prices, she was spending about $10 on gas on the days that she was traveling the most.

“It really depends on the day,” Walker said.

She’s worried that fuel costs will continue to rise. Her boss is already recalculating the restaurant’s delivery fees to account for new gas prices.

Luckily, most of their clients are pharmaceutical representatives and because their companies pay for their catering orders, they don’t think twice about the fees, she said. So, she’s not worried about the losing customers over it.

“I don’t think they pay a lot of attention to it,” Walker said. “Also, I think our current delivery fees are less than the average caterer.”

Gas prices are impacting the real estate industry, as well, said Alexandria Twigg, a realtor with Keller Williams on the Water in Sarasota.

“It went from hovering around the $3.80 mark last week to this morning it was $4.29,” she told Patch on Wednesday. “I literally drove past the gas station this morning and it was $4.29 and yesterday it was $4.19. Since yesterday it went up another 10 cents.”

Twigg spends much of her time on the road, driving throughout the region to see homes with her clients.

“There’s sometimes when I can show properties that are 40 miles apart in the same day and we’re going to 12 different houses, and it’s 300 miles in one day,” she said.

Her GMC Yukon gets about 16 miles a gallon and now costs her $100 or more to fill up. And she’s filling up her tank “a couple of times a week,” she said.

Many realtors she knows are mapping their days out differently so they’re driving more efficiently from one home to the next.

While Twigg is seeing firsthand the impact gas prices are having on “people in sales who are driving all day long,” she’s more worried about how it will affect the overall economy.

“I think the impact on the economy is going to be great,” she said. “It’s just very unfortunate that our country and our community is going to suffer now because of this. It’s a substantial price increase for the average person making minimum wage in our country.”

She’s worried that some areas of the country could see gas as high as $8 a gallon or more during this crisis.

“But until our country learns to become energy efficient and return back to what they were doing and open the pipeline, nothing is going to change,” Twigg said.