Hammond, Indiana passes ordinance requiring gas stations to close overnight
HAMMOND, Ind. (CBS) -- In just a few months, the City of Hammond, Indiana will close all its gas stations between midnight at 5 a.m.
As CBS 2's Sabrina Franza reported, the ordinance was passed with the strike of a gavel at a heated Hammond City Council meeting Monday night. It goes into effect Nov. 1.
Effective that date, all 37 gas stations in Hammond will close during that five-hour overnight period. The ordinance passed the City Council 7-2.
The plan would allow gas stations to file for an exemption. But it is the approval process for that exemption that has some gas station employees worried about their job security.
Meanwhile, the main concern behind the ordinance revolves around crime.
"Right now, every time there's an incident in the middle the night, we have to deploy multiple officers," said Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. "I have 14 police officers working at 2 in the morning, and five or six of them will be tied up at a gas station."
Mayor McDermott supports the plan – calling it a necessary move to improve public safety.
Colleen Kozubal gets off work around the time the gas stations would close.
"I get off around 11 or 12 at night, and my girlfriend - actually a coworker - stopped here one evening, and her car got surrounded," said Kozubal.
Other neighbors worry about people passing through.
"I'd hate to see people get stuck, just in case somebody is traveling and gets off and needs to have Hgas," added Hammond resident Annette Nordgren.
An approval process will make exemptions to the rule, the city will decide on a case-by-case basis if certain gas stations will remain open – weighing a location's willingness to share video with police, its proximity to expressways, and taking into account any violent crime that has happened there before.
"I realize there's going to be a couple of gas stations open," McDermott said, "because there are people that going to be stranded and they need gas - and we're going to make exceptions for them."
The plan is not enough for some gas station owners, who worry the move could cost them jobs and businesses.
"Let me ask you guys – if you were a gas station owner, and you can't stay open, but the guy across the street can, is that really fair?" a gas station owner said at the Monday night hearing on the measure.
Across the state line in Illinois, the Village of Oak Park approved an ordinance similar to the Hammond plan – also limiting gas station hours so they would need to be closed between midnight and 5 a.m. The Village of Oark Park was sued, but the case was eventually dismissed - and the ordinance remains in place.
Hammond Mayor McDermott told us he anticipates the same reaction, but he is confident the city has a strong legal case.