Five Towns businesses affected by high gas prices

It’s a warm spring afternoon and the kids are running around outside and want something cold. Ice cream comes to mind, but there’s neither a jingle to be heard in the neighborhood nor a truck in sight. How come?

Because, as independent ice cream truck driver Orhan Akgun will tell you, the spike in gasoline prices is costing him money, and not only at the pump.

With fuel now more than $4 per gallon at nearly every Five Towns gas station, Akgun says it is costing him $10 to $15 more per day to drive his truck from Grant Park in Hewlett through Cedarhurst to its village park, and then through the streets of Lawrence, than it did last year. “I’m spending $40 to $45 a day to drive all these streets from Hewlett to Cedarhurst and back of Lawrence,” Akgun said as he waited for customers on Summit Avenue, near Cedarhurst Village Park, one day last week.

Akgun, a 14-year veteran of the business, mans his truck from April to early September. He doesn’t calculate how many miles he drives, but he is thinking a lot these days about how much more the daily tour will cost him.

In a recent drive through the Five Towns, the Herald found gas prices at local stations ranging from a low of $3.99 for a gallon of regular (at a Getty station in Cedarhurst and two stations in Inwood) to a high of $4.35 for premium at the Shell station at Mill Road and Peninsula Boulevard. And as of press time on Tuesday, that had changed: The closest, least-expensive gallon of regular was at two stations in Baldwin, both selling it for $3.98 per gallon. A dozen Suffolk County gas stations had the highest price for premium on Long Island, $4.59, according to longislandgasprices.com.

The rising prices have affected Akgun’s wholesale suppliers as well. Depending on the type of ice cream, instead of paying between $15 and $17 for a 24-piece box, he is now paying $17 to $20. “It’s like a link on a chain, and every link is affected by the other,” he said, noting that he sells most of his ice cream for $2 per piece. “I don’t want to raise my prices, but I might have to on my more expensive items. I’m looking for a different distributor with cheaper prices.”

John Erbis, owner of Five Towns Limousines in Cedarhurst, which rents a wide variety of vehicles for proms, weddings and other special uses, has had no choice but to pass his higher fuel costs along to his customers. “I have to be honest with you, I hate it,” Erbis said, “but the more gas is, the less I pay. I pass [the cost] on to the consumer.”

He said he adds a fuel surcharge, with the amount depending on the vehicle that is being rented. The surcharge can be 10 percent of the flat fee for a vehicle, ranging from $75 a night to more than $100 for the “party bus.”

“My business is still thriving,” said Erbis, whose fleet includes everything from Town Cars to sport utility vehicles. “This is a luxury, and the people calling me can afford my service.”

He said he recalls grumbling when gas was $3.50 to $3.75 a gallon. Now, Erbis said, he wishes those prices would return. “I don’t enjoy charging the fuel surcharge,” he said. “I am very unhappy about it, but it is a sign of the times. It is a necessity to do business.”

For Joe Tamburino, the owner of Tamburino’s Delicatessen on Central Avenue in Cedarhurst, raising his prices has become a necessity. “You name it, it’s gone up: meats, paper, foods, dairy,” said Tamburino, who has been in business for 33 years. Most of the items he buys have increased an average of 10 to 12 percent, he said, with coffee rising to $15 per case last week.

“We tried to hold it, but we couldn’t,” said Tamburino, who added that he was raising prices on his merchandise this week, but wasn’t yet sure by how much.