The Surprisingly Harsh Reason Gas Stations Play Classical Music

Gas stations and convenience stores are normally associated with the stench of fuel and cheap coffee, not high art. But you might have noticed that filling your tank can sometimes lead to getting an earful of Bach, Beethoven, or other classical music, often blared through the lot at ear-aching volumes.

Gas stations do this for a specific reason, and it doesn’t have much to do with cultivating appreciation for the music itself or attracting business. It’s just the opposite: The music is intended to drive people away. Here’s why.

1. How Gas Stations Weaponize Classical Music
2. “These Are People … Not Pigeons”
3. Does Playing Classical Music Actually Prevent Loitering and Crime?

How Gas Stations Weaponize Classical Music

According to the Los Angeles Times, the practice of piping classical music via loudspeakers is intended to deter people from loitering in or around gas stations and convenience stores. In 2019, the Times reported that several Los Angeles-area 7-Eleven locations had started playing the music to discourage loiterers from asking for money or idling nearby, which they feared led to customer unease. Others cited shoplifting as a concern.

The idea is not novel: 7-Eleven had been testing the idea as early as the 1980s. Decades later, 7-Eleven piloted the program before offering audio equipment with pre-loaded tracks to its franchisees. Some owners reported the tactic was effective; one estimated a 10 percent reduction in nonpaying visitors to their location.

It’s not just in California, either. In 2023, Ohio news station WSYX reported that a Speedway (a chain now owned by 7-Eleven) in Columbus was also piping in music. That same year, Fox 7 in Austin, Texas, profiled a 7-Eleven in the city that had adopted the policy. Locations have also been profiled in Jacksonville, Florida; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Tacoma, Washington, among other locations. (The tactic isn’t limited to gas stations: In Tacoma, a Walgreen’s had adopted the idea.)

While business operators might often take a positive view of the music, it has invited controversy.

“These Are People … Not Pigeons”

Proponents of music as a loitering deterrent say that people who idle near gas stations can harass customers, create disturbances, and even get physical with employees. Customers, they argue, might be dissuaded from approaching a convenience store with strangers acting erratically in the parking lot.

But critics say loiterers is simply another word for people experiencing homelessness whom businesses have deemed unwelcome. “At a basic level, it’s kind of about who is entitled to public space, who is desirable and undesirable,” Eric Tars, legal director for the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, told the Times. “This kind of othering of the less desirable population shows it’s OK to treat them less than you would want to be treated.”

A Los Angeles customer told the paper that the practice made him less comfortable. “These are people,” he said. “They’re not pigeons. It’s the auditory equivalent of putting spikes on a bench, and it really bothered me.”

Observers have also pointed out an implied suggestion that classical music is somehow repulsive to a certain class of people of a lower social or economic level. “Indeed, playing classical music to clear out public spaces is an act of supreme elitism,” wrote Washington Post columnist Anne Midgette back in 2012 after getting a dose of Schubert at the Port Authority in New York. ”[It’s] an attempt to ‘civilize’ a space by making it unpleasant to people whose tastes differ from your own.”

In Tacoma, critics have argued that rather than deter the unhoused from gathering near businesses, city officials should try to create alternative spaces. “The coalition for many years has urged the city of Tacoma to create low barrier spaces where people can go so they don’t have to stay in front of businesses,” Rob Huff of the Tacoma-Pierce County Coalition to End Homelessness told KOMO News in 2024. “Create actual solutions, rather than things that will just move people from one place to another.”

Complaints have also come in from nearby residents, who have declared the practice noise pollution and have sometimes resorted to phoning police to make a noise complaint.

Does Playing Classical Music Actually Prevent Loitering and Crime?

Often lost in discussions of driving away people with music is whether it’s actually effective. Why is the music discouraging to loiterers? For some, it might be that classical music is unpleasant to their ear, particularly if one is a teenager. But for most, it’s the volume. The music can make it hard for people to congregate and talk.

Actual statistics on whether it can go a step beyond loitering and prevent crime are hard to come by, though. In 2023, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Metro said that piping in classical music at a station resulted in a 20 percent reduction in criminal activity during the first month. In the UK, railroad firm Northern said playing music had led to fewer criminal incidents.

It's possible that installing loudspeakers can have a kind of halo effect. Local law enforcement, for example, might increase their presence near businesses with piped-in music, associating it with a criminal element or problem. Is it the music reducing these behaviors, or the police? The music might also be concurrent with a business making other improvements, such as surveillance or other anti-theft measures.

The conversation around music as an anti-loitering practice is unlikely to abate any time soon. But one thing is clear: The music may have the unintended effect of driving away the customers themselves. “This music is not very good, it’s loud, it’s obnoxious to me, I don’t like it, you can hear it a long ways off, it’s very disturbing,” one Austinite told Fox 7. He opted for a nearby 7-Eleven that doesn’t play any music instead.

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