State Attorney General Paul Summers is asking Tennesseans to be on the watch for price gauging in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Summers says the practice of artificially inflating the price of necessary items such as gas, food, and hotel rates violates both criminal and civil law.

“We see it too often and we’re trying to do something about it before it hits. Course it’s often times isolated examples and we’re not talking about some kind of systemic problem, but when you’ve got an emergent situation, one or two events is just too much.”

Summers says his office is prepared to quickly investigate any claims of price gauging, taking into account legitimate reasons for raising prices due to scarcity. He says the illegal price spikes are most common when the area plays host to evacuees from emergencies in other states.