Around Odd-Even License Plate Rules, a History of Impatience

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times In 1979, a gas line formed at the Hess station at 44th Street and 10th Avenue. There were lines there again â€" for more than a week â€" after Hurricane Sandy struck.

The last time New York City had odd-even gasoline purchase rules, they were in effect for 79 days, and the time before that, 65 days.

This time, the reasons were different. Fuel distribution was disrupted by Hurricane Sandy - among other things, the storm forced tankers bound for the New York area to wait it out and stay beyond the reach of its punishing winds. Also , many service stations had gasoline but no electricity after the storm, so their pumps could not function.

In 1973, the Arab oil embargo choked supplies nationwide. In 1979, a new government took power during the Iranian revolution, and fresh supply worries set off panic buying and long lines at gas stations. There were fistfights at some stations as drivers tried to cut in line. At least one driver was arrested for pulling a gun on a gas station attendant who would not fill his car, with odd-numbered plates, on an even-numbered day.

“It was hectic,” recalled Stanley Gaj, who in 1979 was the manager of a filling station at Queens Boulevard and Albion Avenue in Elmhurst, Queens. “It was chaotic. We opened up at I think 6 or 7 in the morning, and we only stayed open until we ran out. When we ran out, that was it until the next day.” (Mr. Gaj, who now lives in Middle Village, Queens, said that he left the station in the mid-1980s and became a bus driver.)< /p>

The odd-even sales began in mid-June of 1979 after weeks of long lines. They ended on Sept. 6 after officials decided there was finally enough fuel on hand to be certain there would be no more panic buying. Gasoline became widely available again in midsummer after the price passed $1.50 a gallon. It had been less than $1 at the beginning of 1979, before Iran suspended oil exports.

In May of that year, President Jimmy Carter gave governors the power to regulate gasoline sales in their states. That included the power to impose odd-even systems. Three weeks later, Gov. Hugh L. Carey announced an odd-even plan for the city and four suburban counties - Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and Rockland. New Jersey and Connecticut soon followed suit.

Mr. Carey had been under pressure from Mayor Edward I. Koch, who called the gas lines and supply problems “intolerable.” That mirrored the situation five years earlier, when Mayor Abraham D. Beame called the outlook “d esperate” and threatened to start allocating gasoline himself if the state did not.

The governor at the time, Malcolm Wilson, initially resisted, saying he did not want to force “governmental regulation upon our citizens and upon our businesses until every alternative has been exhausted.”

He relented in February 1974, saying the gasoline emergency was endangering public health and safety.

Mr. Wilson ended the odd-even plan in May after federal energy officials increased the amount of gasoline available in New York.

The odd-even rules currently in effect brought back memories for New Yorkers old enough to remember the earlier rounds. Robert Sinclair Jr., now a spokesman for AAA New York, remembered a conversation with a cousin in 1979.

“He was supposed to take this girl out,” he said, “but she didn't appreciate how hard it was to get gasoline. He was done with her.”