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BP gas stations attract abuse over oil spill
The distinctive green sunflower logos on petrol pumps are becoming a liability. Franchisees at BP fuel stations across the US are anxious to distance themselves from the British oil multinational as the Deepwater Horizon spill sparks vandalism, a drop in trade and occasional "hate" from customers.
Although the situation is highly variable, anecdotal reports from the 12,000 BP-branded service stations on American highways are of patchy falls in business of 10% to 20% since oil began gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from BP's ruptured Macondo oil well a mile beneath the ocean off Louisiana.
A consumer group, Public Citizen, is calling for a three-month consumer boycott. BP logos have been smeared with mud in New York. One BP petrol station in Mississippi has even had gunshots fired through its windows in the middle of the night, in an apparent protest without any attempt at a robbery.
In the gritty New York neighborhood of Bushwick, Raja Bindra, a petrol station manager, said he had had his fair share of abuse since oiled birds and tarballs began washing up on US beaches: "People come in and say 'what the fuck are you doing working here?' They are the ones that have no knowledge. The ones who understand what's going on, they don't speak of it."