Daily BrewU.S. video showing Canadian filling garbage bags with gas not what it seems
This is a cautionary tale that things you see on TV or the web are not always what they seem.
Last week, Seattle TV station KOMO posted a video on its web site ostensibly showing a Canadian man filling what look like black garbage bags with gasoline at a Bellingham, Wash., service station.
The video, shot by an American customer at the gas station, quickly went viral over what looked like an appallingly unsafe move by a Canadian looking to save some bucks by filling up on cheaper American gas.
"Dumb Canadian fills a garbage bag with gasoline," Sadie Tucker posted on Twitter.
"You simply wouldn't want to have loose gasoline inside of a car," Washington State Patrol Sgt. Mark Dennis told KOMO, according to The Vancouver Sun, which added the incident had been handed over to Bellingham police for investigation.
Context is important here. The story surfaced during a little spasm of anti-Canadianism from some Bellingham residents fed up with competing with B.C. cross-border shoppers who descend on the small northwest Washington city daily from Vancouver, about a 40-minute drive away.
[ Related: Residents of Washington town resent Canadian shoppers at local Costco ]
Bellingham officials disavowed their resentful citizens who complained about a shortage of parking at the local Costco because of B.C.-plated cars and of rude Canadians denuding pallets of low-priced milk.
Canadian dollars have helped the region ride out U.S. economic troubles, they insisted. A Facebook page advocating "Americans only" shopping hours at the store disappeared.
But the shot of the B.C. driver apparently prepared to risk going up in a fireball to save a few dollars played into the emerging Ugly Canadian stereotype.
[ Related: Quebecers known as bad tippers when visiting Vermont ]
Except that it wasn't quite true.
A man who identified himself as Bill called the Vancouver Province, saying he was the man in the video.
There were plastic gasoline containers inside the bags, he said.
"I'm not that stupid. I was putting gas in my jerry cans," he said. "I didn't want it staining my trunk."
Bill said he saw a photo from the video in the Province's web site on Sunday.
"I thought 'Holy crap.' They were already kind of bitching about Canadians shopping down in the States, and now this."
Bill, who lives in suburban Maple Ridge, said like a lot of Vancouver-area residents, he goes down to Bellingham regularly to shop and fill up with gas. Some bring jerry cans.
To be fair, many who saw the video were skeptical that gas was going directly into garbage bags and speculated there were containers in them.
KOMO has since taken down the video.
So, as Emily Litella used to say, never mind.
