'When gas goes up, everything goes up'

If gas prices are on the rise, it seems the cost of everything else is also on the rise, from airfare to milk. But some local residents and business owners are trying to keep their own spending and costs down, whether it’s by driving less or absorbing increases.

“When gas goes up, everything goes up,” said Carlos Pichardo, manager of the recently opened Associated Supermarket in Malverne. As gas prices have increased, so have those of food wholesalers’, but not quite as high as Pichardo had expected. “We’re not having to change prices a lot yet,” he said.

As a result of steady prices, Pichardo said the supermarket has not seen a decrease in customers, but he is concerned that if gas prices continue to rise it will force supermarket prices to jump and customers to shop elsewhere.

Luckily for some local businesses, “elsewhere” is out of the question: many residents are staying in their communities and shopping locally instead of driving out to other neighborhoods or malls. Malverne resident Dan, who declined to give his last name, is among those who stays close to home. “[I’m] trying to use the car as little as possible,” he said recently as he filled up his gas tank at a Gulf station at the intersection of Hempstead Avenue and Nassau Boulevard. “I have been filling up less and just going for a dollar amount because it’s so expensive.”

Brooklyn resident Joani Potter, whose parents live in Lakeview, has decided to cut down on her travels, too, even if that means fewer visits with her folks. “I’m very conservative with the way I move,” she said, adding that she plans all her errands with location and gas mileage in mind.

Other drivers, like Paul Henrique, believe it’s somewhat impractical to continuously accommodate rising prices. “You have to go where you have to go and that’s it,” he said. “So, you just pay the price and that’s it, unfortunately.” Henrique, who lives in Staten Island, commutes to West Hempstead once or twice a week to pick up his daughter from school: “It adds up,” he said on a recent Friday afternoon, pumping $40 into his large silver Dodge SUV.

The West Hempstead Pharmacy is among businesses relying on people to still go where they have to go. “We have a steady cliental,” a pharmacy employee recently told the Herald. The employee also said that the pharmacy has raised prices of over-the-counter medications because wholesalers have raised their prices, but that hasn’t affected patronage. “[We have the] same amount of customers,” the employee said.

The Cherry Valley Deli in West Hempstead has not been as lucky. Owner John Munoz complained about “incredibly high” wholesale prices forcing him to raise his own prices slightly. But, like the pharmacy, the Deli’s patronage has not been damaged. “We have a big following, very loyal customers,” Munoz said. “It hasn’t affected us yet.”

Some businesses, like Malverne Prime Meats, are taking another approach to the issue: absorbing increasing costs. Prime Meats is not raising prices even in the face of extremely high wholesale prices, which one employee described as “through the roof.” According to the employee, John, wholesale costs have risen 75 percent in the last three months alone. But, still, Prime Meats’ prices remain the same. “If you do not raise prices,” John said, “you keep customers.”

That approach, however, may not last long. In the grim outlook of the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the gas market is expected to tighten even more in 2012 and prices will continue to rise. While national gas prices jumped by about three cents last week, bringing the average price per gallon to $3.83 as of Monday afternoon, the average price per gallon on Long Island jumped seven cents to $4.14, according to the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report.

With Svenja van den Woldenberg and Victoria Centrella