A gas station on the Damascus road, near Hazmieh-Baabda. (Credit: Mohammad Yassin/L'Orient-Le Jour)
BEIRUT — Beirut Governor Marwan Abboud met with Geroges Brax, the president of the union of gas station owners, on Friday to discuss extending the deadline for unlicensed stations to regularize their situation. During their meeting, Brax asked for an extension from the originally set deadline of Dec. 31, 2025, to March 31, 2026.
The Beirut prefecture had issued a warning notice No. 2812/2025 on Sept. 11, which grants a deadline until Dec. 31 for stations to submit a file proving compliance as well as a license application, under penalty of being shut down and sealed, according to a statement from the governor’s communications office.
Brax requested that “this deadline be extended until next March 31 and that stations which, in the meantime, have submitted a regularization file or a request to renew their operating license, not be closed before the completion of their procedures.”
Contacted by L’Orient-Le Jour, Brax explained that “preparing a complete file for obtaining a permit requires a technical dossier including plans and official documents and can hardly be finalized in three months.”
Brax also expressed his wish that, when new authorizations for gas stations are granted, “the minimum distance requirement provided for by Decree No. 5509, which is a radius of 800 meters,” be strictly applied. He also emphasized the need to put an end to “the proliferation of car wash centers and oil change workshops operating outside of stations, and to close them.”
