A group of gas station owners in Oak Park got a reprieve, for now, from being required by village ordinance to cease being open 24 hours after a Cook County judge granted a temporary restraining order after the group filed a lawsuit.
On Sept. 19, the Village Board approved a ban gas stations in town being open past midnight. The ordinance prohibits operating between midnight and 5 a.m. in response to reports of criminal activity, including the fatal shooting in June of an 18-year-old Oak Park and River Forest High School graduate at a 24-hour gas station on Chicago Avenue.
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The new law sparked a Sept. 27 civil lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court against the village by the owners of seven gas stations, including six of the eight all-night ones that operate in Oak Park.
The gas stations involved in the lawsuit are at 7140 Roosevelt Road, 727 Harlem Avenue, 100 Chicago Avenue, 330 Chicago Avenue, 6129 W. North Avenue, 520 S. Austin Boulevard and 1 Harrison Street.
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The gas station owners subsequently asked for and on Sept. 29 received a temporary restraining order from Cook County Circuit Judge Neil Cohen preventing the new law from taking effect.
“We represent a group of minority-owned gas stations, and this closure will put them out of business,” the group’s lawyer, John Ellis, told Pioneer Press. “Everything that they do, all of their fuel supply contracts, are all dependent on their staying open 24 hours. These are businesses that survived the pandemic and they were open during the pandemic to be able to serve essential frontline workers, to give them their gas and food. They survived, and to come out and have this mandatory closure will just devastate them.”
Trustees and residents who have long supported the earlier closing also cited other violent crimes that have taken place outside all-night gas stations. Village officials revealed in July that there had been 18 violent offenses at the village’s gas stations between the start of 2019 and July 2022, of which 13 had taken place between the hours at 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Both at Village Board meetings prior to the vote on the ordinance and in the lawsuit, the gas station owners have argued that Oak Park’s new law is excessive and could cause the removal of anywhere from 15% to 35% of the stations’ total sales.
In addition, the gas station owners noted that the law could jeopardize their agreements with fuel suppliers, which are based on contract requirements mandating that they remain open 24 hours a day. And, they argued that the data provided by the village did not address crime at other overnight businesses, according to the lawsuit.
Neither village attorney Paul Stephanides nor Village President Vicki Scaman responded to repeated requests for comment on the on the lawsuit.
Ellis said the gas station owners suggested a set of voluntary mitigation measures to the village as a way to counter concerns about the police department being thinly staffed during overnight hours.
“While we’d love to see an additional police presence at our stations overnight, we’d take the voluntary step to (have) our own private security to see how it works,” Ellis said.
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Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
