Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 26, 1993 TAG: 9311260009
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Seventeen years a baker, Nackley seems to have found his niche in his second career as owner of Charbel's Sports Grill on Shenandoah Avenue in Roanoke.
Nackley understands the demographics of owning a taproom with a working-class clientele. He runs late-night specials to lure the late-shift workers from the factories just down Shenandoah in Roanoke and in Salem. He's revving a stock car, emblazoned with his bar's logo, to run at Franklin County Speedway next season.
And he sponsors more than a dozen teams in darts and billiards. Four nights a week, dozens of Charbel faithful fan out into the valley to drink a few beers and challenge teams from other bars.
If they look happy, if their T-shirts are nice, if they speak well of Charbel's, they may lure new customers back to Charlie Nackley's bar. When they play at Charbel's, that means a night of beer sales for Charlie Nackley.
Beer is Nackley's meat and potatoes. The more he sells, the more he earns. The more he earns, the more he's determined to pump into the business to sell more beer.
A couple of months ago, Nackley paid $5,000 for a Cadillac stretch limousine and another thousand to do some body work on the car. He put the bar's name on the door and parked it on the gravel lot in front of his tavern.
Make no mistake. Nackley bought the limo because he understands demographics. He knew that it would impress people and lure some to drink their beers at Charbel's.
He drives his dart and pool teams to their matches in the back seat of the limo, where there's a small bar and a television set.
"It's a high for them," says Nackley. "Everybody's trying to look in to see who's in there."
He welcomes the close inspection, and he boasts, "I am the only bar owner in Roanoke who gives this service."
Part of the service is driving home patrons who drink too much - Nackley estimates he's done it 100 times since he bought the bar - for the obvious reason: "I want to make sure a man comes in drinking gets home safe, without running over some kid."
Nackley sees it as good business, too: "If I can get that guy home to his family, I have him again tomorrow as a customer."
Charlie Nackley sees profit in people who aren't dead or imprisoned, so he uses a stretch limo to take them home when they're soused.
The tavern business is as old as all mankind, but in two years Charlie Nackley's capitalist's bent has led him to a vital truth about its future: Drunks driving are bad for business.
For each issue in the public arena, there's a flash point. None in this valley has been as close in the past half year to reaching that threshold of public indignation and fury as drunken and dangerous driving.
The next round may focus public attention and anger on Charlie Nackley and his peers, on the profit motives that send potential killers onto the roads. A few more savage wrecks, and we may all grapple with a truth it's easier to ignore - serving ready-to-drink alcohol to customers is socially understandable but morally indefensible.
Nackley and his stretch limo may be good for business now; someday, they might be just part of the cost of doing business.
by CNB