> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # High gas prices impact local market - URL: https://www.smdp.com/high-gas-prices-impact-local-market/ - Published: 2008-03-06T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-24T23:33:15.000Z - Author: Guest Author - Tags: Business, Downtown, #archive-import *Police investigating newspaper thefts* *By CHIARA CANZI Special to the Daily Press* DOWNTOWN With gas prices peaking at $4 a gallon and a looming recession at hand, Southern California farmers are becoming increasingly concerned about their livelihood. Every Wednesday, Jim Brantley of Pritchett Farms packs up his truck with fruits and vegetable and travels 190 miles to the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market, sets up shop and begins his day. But in the last few weeks, Brantley’s journey has become more and more problematic. “The last round trip I have made at the ranch two weeks ago cost about $120 in fuel and today’s about $150 in fuel,” he said.“With prices going up we are going to have to raise our prices and there is no way around it.” Brantley is not alone. Laura Avery, the market’s manager, has heard about farmers facing tough times across the country. “There is one farmer that said that her diesel truck costs hundreds of dollars to fill up every day,” she said. California’s average price for regular gasoline increased 13.1 cents from last week. According to the Energy Information Administration, this week’s average price is $3.45, an increase of 56.2 cents over last year. The increase is attributed to the price of crude oil, which reached $102.45 per barrel early this week. Despite the hike, farmers are reluctant to raise their own prices. “We haven’t yet,” Brantley said.“So far we have been able to hold our prices, but we are going to eventually raise them and it’s just going to have to happen.” Avery hasn’t heard anything on the matter from farmers yet, but she knows how committed to their customers they are. “They hate to raise prices,” she said. “They have set prices and their customers expect it and I really don’t know how they are going to deal with it.” Santa Monica resident Gosia Probosz has been buying locally grown produce for the past 20 years and has seen a steady increase in the cost of her favorite foods. “Everything is more expensive,” she said. “It’s going to affect me,I will be very selective in what I buy, and I’ll be buying in less quantity.” Probosz has noticed the price of certain items skyrocket in the last few weeks. Cauliflower used to be $1 and today’s standard has risen to $3 each;celery used to be one of the cheapest veggies, she said, going for an average of $1.50 and now it has topped $3 per bunch. Even federally funded land trusts are having a hard time surviving. Representatives from the Center for Urban Agriculture at Fairview Gardens, in Goleta, have seen their small enterprise shrink in staff and profit. “We try to remain local,”the representative said. “We are trying to transport our produce as little as possible in order to make money.” The farthest they travel is the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market and even that trip has seen changes. “With gas prices so high we are using our small van instead of our more convenient truck that is also refrigerated,”the representative said. The 12-acre property grows a diversity of crops and they rely mostly on the Community Supported Agriculture Initiative in Santa Barbara,where people come to farms and buy their weekly share of produce. But they make the trip to Santa Monica because they think it is important to support organic, chemical-free eating as a way of life. Local farmers’ market shoppers share the philosophy of healthy eating, so much so, that they would be willing to pay more for their organic produce than going to chain grocery stores. “I like the fact that my fruits and vegetables didn’t travel 700 miles and they are not frozen,” Probosz said. “I am willing to pay more as long as I get organically grown foods and I like to support the farmers.” FROM THEFTS PAGE 1 harm a competitor or deprive a reader of its content. The penalty for a first offense is a $250 fine with the second offense possibly resulting in a jail sentence and a fine up to $500. In December, several San Francisco Bay Area newspaper publishers formed a coalition to pressure law enforcement authorities to pursue newspaper thieves. In Santa Monica, police officers just completed a stint in which they monitored several news racks in “hot spots” early Wednesday morning. The morning investigation didn’t lead to any suspects. “We didn’t find anything unusual,” Officer Scott Pace said on Wednesday. “We just saw several people delivering.” Police have no leads on possible suspects and whether the crime is being committed by one individual or different groups of thieves. Pace added that in speaking with recycling centers and distributors, the stolen papers do seemed to be used to make money at area recycling centers. The Argonaut intentionally distributes fewer papers at certain popular news racks on the day it’s published, restocking copies over the weekend, according to Carol Hector, the publisher and editor of the paper. “It’s a problem,” Hector said. “If the price of recycling newsprint was lower, it wouldn’t be worth it for them to pay the gas \[to drive and pick up newspapers\].” Newspaper thefts are hardly a new trend and are something that has been going on for at least the past 10 years, according to Tom Ponton, the owner of News to Go, which distributes both the Santa Monica Mirror and The Argonaut. “Whenever the price goes up at the recycling center, it seems to get worse,”Ponton said. Ponton noted that most of the thefts seem to occur early in the morning, between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. Keith Wyatt, who handles the circulation for the Santa Monica Daily Press, said that he saw a man remove a stack of newspapers shortly after the distributor delivered them to a news rack on Santa Monica Boulevard last month. Wyatt said he chased the man, who was driving a blue or green van, for several blocks and lost him after a pursuit on Pacific Coast Highway. “Certain locations, I would expect them to be empty, but not every night,”Wyatt said. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/030608-01_01.jpg) (Photo: BY CHIARA CANZI Special to the Daily Press) *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 6, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/030608.pdf?ref=smdp.com)