Sep. 28--Thought you were sticking it to the man when you drove right past that Exxon station and filled up at the independent-looking one across the street?

Think again.

Industry officials say the main man you're sticking it to is the local man -- the one who actually owns or runs that Exxon station you might be boycotting for a variety of reasons, whether it be ExxonMobil's environmental history or its alleged human rights violations. The truth is, almost all gas stations in Connecticut, by state law, are run by family businesses and gasoline distributors, not by the major oil companies whose brands are plastered on the signs outside.

"We just fly the flag," said Michael J. Fox, executive director of the Gasoline & Automotive Service Dealers of America, based in Stamford. "We're in agreement that, in certain instances, people have every right to be angry. But you're basically hurting your local business owners and, in some cases, your neighbor."

So if you're trying to make a political statement by squeezing the profit margins of Venezuela-owned CITGO, American giant ExxonMobil or Russia-based Lukoil -- which also, by the way, owns the rights to the Getty retail brand -- your search for a station of "lesser evil" could prove frustrating.

But it's not entirely fruitless.

In many cases, local operators still pay the oil companies monthly to use their brands, their stations and their additives. These ingredients, what Fox calls "pixie dust," are the only difference between one oil company's gas and another.

The major oil companies earn about 7 cents for every dollar you spend on gas, according to John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute in Washington, D.C. These earnings from retail sales have driven political activists to post signs picturing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of the Bush administration, holding the CITGO logo, along with the following message: "Don't buy gas from this ass." Anti-Bush advocates have encouraged the exact opposite.

When war broke out recently between Russia and Georgia, many caught on that Lukoil is headquartered in Moscow. Peace advocates and Georgia sympathizers urged Americans to avoid Lukoil and Getty stations. Others have stayed away from the stations because of ongoing clashes between the U.S. and Russia.

Environmentalists and human rights activists have long urged consumers to boycott ExxonMobil, Shell and other global oil companies based on their records of pollution, oil spills -- especially after the Exxon Valdez incident -- and ties to countries notorious for human rights injustices.