Eyob "Joe" Mamo (above) is the owner of Capitol Petroleum, a regional business giant in the D.C. area which generates $778 million in annual revenue. It owns, operates or supplies 164 gas stations in the Washington Metropolitan Area and 71 stations in New York City.
Attempts to curb gas station mogul raise issues of money, power and race
The Root | Written by Frank McCoy
When he was a 13-year-old braving northern-Midwest winters, Eyob “Joe” Mamo couldn’t have imagined that he would someday control a mini-empire of gas stations on the East Coast.
In 1981 Mamo’s father, Yenberber Mamo, who owned the Mamo Kacha bus company in Addis Ababa, sent Joe to a North Dakota boarding school to protect him from the communist regime that ruled Ethiopia. Now the commercial success of Joe Mamo, 44 — founder, owner and CEO of privately held Capitol Petroleum Group, which controls 42 percent of Washington, D.C.’s gas stations — is being questioned.
Mamo buys gas from oil refiners and sells it to the operators of the stations that he owns. A few of those operators say that Mamo has hiked their rent, the gas-delivery price and gas prices — driving away potential consumers. District residents always complain that they pay more for gas than in the suburbs because of a mix of station location, taxes and other expenses. On Oct. 3, the street prices of a gallon of regular gas in the District and in adjacent Bethesda, Md., and Arlington, Va., neighborhoods were mostly comparable, with gas at $3.31 to 3.89 in Arlington and $3.05 to $4.29 in the District.
Related:
DC Attorney General Begins Gas Station Probe (WUSA 9)
