Why Jersey girls − and guys − still don’t pump their own gas

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Robert H. Scott III, Monmouth University

(THE CONVERSATION) New Jersey’s quirky reputation is hard earned, but one peculiarity stands out: It’s the only place in America where you can’t pump your own gas.

Laws against self-service gasoline used to be common: In the late 1960s, nearly half the states in the U.S. had one. But as fuel dispensers became safer and credit cards made paying at pumps possible, those states began to reconsider. By the early 1990s, nearly four out of five gas stations nationwide were self-serve.

For decades, Oregon and New Jersey were the last two holdouts. But Oregon loosened its restrictions against gas station self-service in 2018 and ultimately reversed its ban in 2023.

That leaves the Garden State. Its self-service ban, which went into effect in 1949, has a colorful history: It was born of a thuggish, Sopranosesque effort to thwart competition. In the late 1940s, a man named Irving Reingold opened a self-service station in Hackensack, offering gasoline at a lower price than his competitors. Those competitors tried to intimidate Reingold –...