Motorists were lined up on the shoulder of Stafford Road in Tiverton for more than 20 minutes on Monday, waiting their turn to fill up their gas tank at one of four pumps at George’s Gas and Service.

Last week, owner George Alzaibak became the talk of the town as decided to drop his fuel prices to $4.21 — 50 cents less than the going rate pretty much everywhere else — and customers from all over the area flocked towards their chance at a deal. He said it's the least he can do for a community that has given him so much.

Alzaibak emigrated from Beirut, Lebanon to the United States in 1985. His uncle owned a gas station in the states, so when he first came to America as a student, he helped pump gas and enrolled in New England Tech's automotive program. His brother was also already living in the states, and upon graduating, Alzaibak married and stayed in the area that he now calls home.

To commemorate his anniversary of arriving in America, he handed out free Del’s Lemonade to his customers on June 25, to celebrate his “unbelievable journey in this wonderful country of ours.”

His road hasn’t always been easy, and it's seldom been harder than it has in recent months.

“We really took a hit when the Ukrainian war started,” said Alzaibak. “Our prices jumped, and sales went down because the prices jumped a lot. Sometimes climbing 40 cents, 50 cents, it seemed like almost a dollar overnight. It wasn’t just about the money, but also the fact that people were aggravated, and they had every right to be. After they let out their frustration, and said whatever they had to say to us, they would always say ‘We know it’s not your fault,’ but still, I would have to listen to it all.”

“I had a customer come in not too long ago, and as I’m pumping her gas the other day, she started to cry,” he said. “She told me, ‘Between Market Basket and you, I have no money left for the week.’ I told her ‘No, wait, I’ll pay for the gas, don’t worry about it.’”

Though the woman refused his offer to pay, she told him she couldn’t believe how tough it was, because of how expensive everything has been lately.

“After she left, I went inside to the shop and I said to the guy who was working our repairs during the day, I told him ‘We have to do something, this is just nuts. This cannot continue with business as normal,’” said Alzaibak. “I think as a society we’ve just accepted that stuff is expensive, but it’s not.”

“So I said, 'That’s it, our prices are going down,'” he said. “I told my guys, 'We’re going down, and we’re going to get busy, and you guys are going to have to back me. We’re going to work hard and be on the pumps,' and we did. I started posting about the prices going down a little at a time.”

He’s decided to call it a “peaceful revolution.”

“I’m the smallest [station] in this whole area, I’m the smallest one. I’ve been toeing the line because I’ve been afraid to rock the boat. Because the bigger companies, they’ll squish me,” said Alzaibak. “They have more money than I have, and they’ll start to drop their prices below me, and it’s happened before in the past and I’ve had to suffer with it. They could easily drop 50 cents tomorrow and I wouldn’t be able to compete with them. I don’t want to start a price war, but we need to do something, because this cannot continue the way it has.”

“It’s time for all these big companies to follow," he said. “If the prices all go down, then everyone will be able to keep their customers, and everyone will be happy. I know it’ll cost me, but all in all, I want everyone to get their fair price. This is not right what they’re pricing out there.”

After he dropped his prices, the Shell station at the intersection of Bulgarmarsh and Stafford Road just went down in price, yet they still remain three cents higher than George’s as of this past Monday afternoon. In Fall River, the prices haven’t seemed to budge. However, George’s operates as a full-service station, with two employees pumping the gas outside at any given time.

“The other stations are all self-service pumps, where the customer is doing all the work. The original idea of self-service was to price the gas at almost to nothing, and have the customers do the work, and they’d make their money within the convenience store. Normally, we’d be 10 cents higher than them because we’re full service,” said Alzaibak. “But somehow, the greed from these big companies — from Shell, to Exxon, to Mobil, to 7-11, to all of them — it’s just gotten in the way.”

“We just said, things have to change. And this is how we start that change,” Alzaibak added.

Ever since the drop in prices, he's been more than busy — “people have been coming all day, every day. There have been lines down the road. Sometimes there’s a line on both sides,” said Alzaibak. “I open at 6 a.m. and I close at 8 p.m., and it’s been nonstop. I just tell my regulars to be patient with me, because I know they’re suffering the most with the lines and the waiting, but they’ve had my back all along, even before all of this.”

“People’s attitude has been spectacular, which is honestly why I hope it forces everyone’s prices to go down,” said Alzaibak. “This is not just for the customers who come here. I think everybody deserves a better treatment out there. I cannot serve everybody in this area, it’s unattainable, but it’s a shame that other places are still charging these people those prices.”

“After what we’ve experienced this past week, it’s been such an uplifting time, and I love it,” Alzaibak said. “We get food dropped here all day, treats and drinks brought to us all day, I’ve got customers bringing things– people I don’t even know and I’ve never met in my life before. Everyone is in a great mood because of all this, and I’m loving every minute of it.”