Motorists looking for gasoline in California were pumped up by a promotion that rolled back prices to 1959 levels, but police in Santa Monica ended it when traffic was snarled for several hours.
The promotion was tied to the popular Amazon show, "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," KCBS reported. Amazon partnered with businesses in the Los Angeles area to offer prices from 1959, the year in which the program is set. That included a Chevron station in Santa Monica, but by 10 a.m. traffic had caused major congestion, the television station reported.
While the station was supposed to offer the 30-cent promotion until 5 p.m., police shut it down earlier in the afternoon.
"It was supposed to be shut down at 1:30 p.m., and we decided to let it go an extra hour to 2:30," Santa Monica Police Department spokeswoman Lt. Candice Cobarrubias told the Los Angeles Times Thursday afternoon.
The Chevron station was the only gasoline retailer to offer the discount, the newspaper reported.
In a tweet, the television series' Twitter account joked about the traffic woes.
“When we brought LA prices from 1959, we didn’t know they would come with Manhattan traffic. Oy!”
Some motorists, however, were not amused, complaining on social media about the increased traffic.
"I got to sit in gridlock on the 10 for half an hour and my kid was late to school because of this fool stunt," one person tweeted.
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