The Connecticut Attorney General’s Office and Department of Consumer Protection are investigating 30 complaints of price gouging by businesses ahead of Hurricane Irene pounding the state.
Consumer Protection has received two dozen complaints of excessive profiting on fuel, bottled water and batteries in advance of Sunday’s storm, said DCP spokeswoman Claudette Carveth. DCP can’t provide more information on the complaints as they are allegations at this point.
The Attorney General George Jepsen’s staff has received a half dozen complaints of price gouging, almost all on gasoline, said AG spokeswoman Susan Kinsman
Connecticut state law prohibits a business from excessive raising of prices in advance of an imminent market disruption, such as Irene forcing a shutdown of businesses before and after the storm.
Because many gas stations are closed and still without power, the Attorney General’s Office will continue to monitor excessive profiting on fuel until electricity is restored. The deadline to file complaints on price gouging has been extended to Sept. 6.
Despite complaints about price gouging for gasoline, the price per gallon of regular unleaded continued to drop in Greater Hartford and the state as a whole, according to the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report.
The only area of the state were gasoline prices are higher than before Hurricane Irene is in the New London-Norwich area, where prices are up 3.2 cents per gallon since last week. In terms of power outages, that area of the state was hit worse than the rest of Connecticut, according to Berlin electric utility Connecticut Light & Power’s outage map.
