Main streets in small towns in South Louisiana are lined with defunct service stations and gas stations that no longer sell gasoline.

Some stations are being converted to other uses, such as restaurants or stores, and many stand simply abandoned.

Local owners of former full and self-service stations that have stopped selling gasoline say the small margin of profit they make on gasoline, competition with other stations, fluctuating gas prices and a constant need to upgrade tanks to follow environmental regulations make the practice of selling gasoline untenable.

A.J. Guidry stands in front of his Community Service Station in St. Martinville. He removed the tanks in June. He had been helping out with the business since his father opened it in 1950, when Guidry was 11. -- Mary Catharine Martin / The Daily Iberian Advertisement

Businesses that serve gasoline must follow a set of environmental regulations particular to underground storage, regulated by the state Department of Environmental Quality.

A.J. Guidry is owner of Community Service Station in St. Martinville. He said when he and his wife drive to visit their son in Ohio, they take a route that passes through small towns.

“Every time we go through a small town, I tell my wife ‘Look, Ma, another dead station,’ ” Guidry said.

Guidry’s father began the family’s full-service station in 1950, and Guidry, 11 years old at the time, helped out “from day one.” He took over the service station in 1970.

Now 70, Guidry made the decision recently to stop serving gas and removed the underground fuel tanks in June. The station is still open, without gasoline, and Guidry is trying to figure out how to close it down.

At one time, there were “little service stations on every corner,” Guidry said, but many have folded over the years.

Part of the problem is self-service stations, which cut into the profit of businesses like his when self-serve began gaining in popularity in the 1970s, he said. He also said all the fees he had to pay to comply with environmental standards cut in, as well.

It cost Guidry more than $13,000 to remove his tanks and comply with environmental regulations while doing so, he said, and necessary upgrades while operating the tanks cost money, too.

Some self-service stations also have run into difficulty.

Sone Lathaphasavang and his wife, Manivanh, have been the owners of Konick Quick Stop on Louisiana 182, near the Acadiana Regional Airport, for about 14 years.

Profit on gas was usually only 5 or 6 cents a gallon, if that, Sone said. That, combined with fees associated with the use of credit cards and keeping up with regulations led to their decision to close down the pumps in recent years.

Sone said he sells food and items inside the store “for living, that’s it. I don’t know where I can go.”

He and his wife are the only ones working at the store, and he said they can no longer afford insurance — just to pay the bills.

Theriot’s Service Center in New Iberia decided to stop selling gas in 1998, after its distributor, which sold the gas, went out of business, said Kevin Theriot, who took over the business from his father, Alvin.

The distributor didn’t want to spend the money to upgrade, and neither did the Theriot family. Now, they are solely a service station — and Theriot said business is, if anything, better now.

“We decided to stop selling (gas) when it was still on (the distributor’s) back to pay for everything,” said Theriot. “All the mandates and regulations that came along — a lot of people, that’s why they stopped selling gas. It’s just too much all the time for the little money you make off that. You buy high(ly priced) gas, the price drops, you’re caught with high gas — all the time, all the time.”

Other service stations face a less decided future, and many — in Jeanerette, in Franklin, in New Iberia and  across the country — face a future of gradual decay, flowers growing in place of pumps, piles of empty boxes and furniture — or nothing at all — to be seen through the windows.