In Oregon it’s jobs. There is a list of reasons why, safety, blah, blah, blah …, but basically so you can always get a job pumping gas.
You have to wonder if Oregon is going to be able to go back to that after this “temporary” exemption for the pandemic.
This reminded me of a law in Rockland County, New York. The county decided they didn’t want to have mobile homes in the county. But they couldn’t afford to evict the people who were already living in mobile homes. So they enacted a law banning anyone from buying a mobile home.
The result was that the people who owned mobile homes in Rockland County were grandfathered in and were allowed to keep their homes. But they could never sell them because nobody else was legally allowed to buy them. They were forced to either keep living in their mobile home - year after year, decade after decade - until they gave up and abandoned them. All they could do was sell the lot.
The temporary thing is long over. I never got to pump my own gas, never came across a station that didn’t have someone working the pumps. Things are back to normal. 
Given the stormwater drainage in the Willamette Valley, I completely approve of the no self pump rule because I used to work in a self serve station in California, and your average motorist is a huge pain in the ass with spilling shit all over the place. Not one day went by we didn’t have to be out there with spill pads and suck it up powder cleaning up after some dingus who doesn’t understand that when the handle kicks back you STOP PUMPING. Gas jockeys in Oregon will NOT “top off” the tank, once it kicks it’s done and no eking the pump up to a round dollar amount. Which means basically zero spillage, which means fewer dead fish when the rain runs over the spilled gas and it all goes swirling down the storm drain which is helpfully stencilled with a fish and “Runs directly to stream, no dumping” warning. This is less of a problem in Central and Eastern Oregon because it’s much dryer and there’s less of a risk of environmental damage.
What’s the logic in having a company or the city pick up your trash, instead of taking it to the dump yourself? It’s about convenience. I prefer to stay in my climate-controlled car and not touch the stinky, dirty pump. YMMV.
In my decades of driving in NYC, I have yet to find the sign that lets you make this mythical legal right turn on red.
I have yet to see a self-serve option during the pandemic. Maybe in the more rural areas. There won’t be a problem.
The age of consent varies widely by state. A young couple could fornicate legally on the first night of their road trip, only to engage in statutory rape at the next stop.
You do realize that people in the other 48 states snicker when you all complain about “stinky” gas pumps and motorists spilling gasoline everywhere. Everyone else has been able to handle it just fine.
Anyone who has traveled to Hawaii will also note it’s illegal to bring snakes to the islands and there are massive penalties. Basically there are no snakes in Hawaii and they are not interested in having a new invasive species let loose.
When I lived in Japan, the law was the customer could not pump gas themselves. It required two people who worked at the “gas stand” (as it’s called there) to get the gasoline into the vehicle: one person to pump, and a safety observer. The stated reason for that was for environmental protection and, of course, consumer and staff safety.
I didn’t realize it was strictly enforced in California, but my association with jaywalking citations is Seattle. I was expressly warned visiting the city that they write people up for that. Coming from Chicago, it sounded like a joke to me, but I soon learned of several people who had been fined for doing so, hence I stayed a good pedestrian.
I question the logic of saying a gas station employee will be more environmentally friendly than a car owner. It seems likely to me that a guy who’s paying for the gas and owns the car any excess gas will spill on has more incentive to not overfill his tank.
You don’t have to pump your own gas if you don’t want to. There are plenty of gas stations that offer full service pumps as an option.
You can add billboards to the list of things illegal in Hawaii. They saw early on what that would look like here and scotched it.
I forgot where I read it but I remember reading all those “Crazy” laws such as YOU CANT GO WATER YOUR LAWN IN A TUTU were actually deliberately signed into law by local municipalities knowing that it will get them attention in the news, so they’re all gimmicks that are never actually intended to be enforced. Same reason you got NATIONAL CHICKEN TACO DAY stuff.
Yeah, full-service should be a choice; this whole “law just to keep a dead-end job available” just seems odd to me; might as well demand every car come with a buggy whip to keep the buggy-whip-manufacturers employed.
AND YET, just a few posts above your last I recounted my extensive personal lived experience of growing up in California AND working IN a gas station, with spills being a daily occurrence. Driving off with the pump handle still in stuck in the car was a monthly occurrence, and that was back when breakaway hoses were unusual and expensive–so always expensive damage to the pump and a good sized puddle of gas on the island. Right up to this very day, when I go to a gas station across the river in Washington I notice the stains and slick patches all over the pump islands from the countless dribbles a very good sized percentage of drivers can’t seem to learn not to do. Most Oregon stations, on the other hand, have very clean and unstained concrete on the islands and you don’t slide around when it’s raining. Maybe y’all are just inured to how much petroleum spillage you’re looking at every day but trust me, you live in Oregon for a while and it’s really a disgusting bit of culture shock to go to a self serve state. Not to mention how very spoiled one gets during horrible weather never having to get out of the car if you don’t want to. And our gas is cheaper in Portland than it is five miles away in Vancouver so there’s no advantage there either.
Being the last state in the Union to finally outlaw non-unanimous jury verdicts was a distinction in suckitude–not having to pump our own gas is nothing to be ashamed of.