CENTRAL FLORIDA — Economists predict the impact on gas prices due to the Ukraine-Russian crisis could be felt here in Florida relatively soon.

What You Need To Know

  • According to a AAA report, the Sunshine State hit a record high earlier this week of an average gas price at $3.51

  • Rising fuel costs are impacting businesses

  • Businesses have had to change deliveries in order to compensate

According to a AAA report, the Sunshine State hit a record high earlier this week of an average gas price at $3.51. The impact has been felt on drivers and local businesses that deal in transportation.

John Kobylinski, the owner of In Bloom Florist, said the rising fuel costs already put a strain on his business because the costs of flowers went up because it’s more expensive to import flowers from out of state and out of the country.

Kobylinski said it’s also impacting delivery costs because they’ve seen an increase of up to 50% in fuel expenses compared to last year, paying up to $5,000 a month. 

“We might be taking one delivery to Windermere or Disney and we can’t do that for free. We can’t,” Kobylinski said. “That’s going to be our biggest challenges. We’ll probably have to relook at our delivery areas and we might increase delivery charges in certain areas just to cover those costs.”

He said they also plan to change delivery times, lower the number of timed deliveries they make, adjust how many long distance deliveries they make per week, and charge slightly more for floral arrangements.