Would you believe that it is the major oil companies' goal to stifle these mom-and-pop businesses and bring them under the yoke?1000's of gas stations are owned and run by small business families, NOT corpo run franchises. A few are corpo run, many times the large 20+ pump stations are corpo, but not always.
Many have repair shops, car washes, and gas is just a small margin way of steady income. Many added snacks, drinks and beer, wine, liquor (AM/PM style) if they want to hassle the licensing. But those items make way more in margins than gasoline.
The smaller stations run by "mom and pop" are starting to find the hassle of juggling large price swings up or down, more headache than they're worth. Deciding to not offer gas anymore, and go back to only repair, smog, propane, snacks and whatever instead. Locals living and depending on these small town stations are bummed, leaving less options. Selling gas and making a half-way decent profit takes a ton of experience and foresight planning in setting prices daily and staying competitive.
As we see in the more wealthy areas, stations charge WAY more than less desired areas, because the wealthy will pay for the convenience to not shop around a few miles a way for cheaper gas. 25-50+ cents more a gallon doesn't bother them.
In LA, look at the price difference for gas in Malibu compared to Lakewood. A full dollar or more, easily.
It's not the price swings that hurt so much as the mandated upgrades from single-wall steel to (eventually) double-walled fiberglass, leak detection, the whole nine yards, and guess what you eventually discover in the process. Then there are the costs of assessment and remediation from said leaks - sure they get reimbursed eventually but the major oils have a lot more capital to absorb those costs than smaller mom-and-pops.
And yes, those stations out in Malibu and yes, including the former (?) Jakel menace on PCH/Sunset, have always been significantly more expensive than the norm. Going back at least 40 years.