Thursday’s column: He should create the $1,000 bologna sandwich
John Markell in his bar on Williamson Road. | Photo by Rebecca Barnett
John Markell claims he is the most honest restaurateur in Roanoke, in one particular way. And that’s what landed him before the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board on Wednesday, pleading for his liquor license.
It wasn’t a problem with alcohol. Markell didn’t serve anyone who was three sheets to the wind, or who was underage. Nobody stripped off their clothes at Markell’s Bar & Grill, his place on Williamson Road just south of 10th Street.
Roanoke police have never been called there to break up a fight. He says he has the cleanest bathrooms in town because he’s a neatnik.
Markell is in trouble because of food. He does not sell enough of it. He’s not going to lie, he said.
He has a small neighborhood bar with two pool tables, darts, a karaoke machine and a nonsmoking area nobody uses. It’s called a restaurant because technically there is no such thing as a bar under Virginia law.
But it’s a bar.
READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE.
May 10, 2012 - 6:00 AM
Digging to the Conservative Well on this one:
http://bearingdrift.com/2012/03/20/virginians-out-dated-puritanical-abc-laws-have-to-go/
Followed up very well by this excellent YouTube video outlining the hypocrisies and idiotic rules the ABC follows. If you watch this video and can still defend the ABC rules, you’re just doing it out of spite. (You know who I’m talking about.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3KQVRQIvKs
I think I’m the only one on here who thinks the government needs to get out of the alcohol business in Virginia. I realize that they make money off of it, but the same argument could be used on any commodity and to the same ends. There’s no reason to think that micromanagement of alcohol sales by a governmental body won’t result in the same level of idiocy we see everywhere else they’re in charge.
I think I’m the only one on here who thinks the government needs to get out of the alcohol business in Virginia. I realize that they make money off of it, but the same argument could be used on any commodity and to the same ends. There’s no reason to think that micromanagement of alcohol sales by a governmental body won’t result in the same level of idiocy we see everywhere else they’re in charge.
Hard to believe this is coming from a lib, but yes I fully agree with your statement that the government screws up everything they touch.
Is Kristen feeeling well?
LOl Suzie..I was thinking the same thing.
Kristen,and Dan, I am wondering if you don’t also see that this is perfect example of the Government creating silly hoops that small farmers or businesses have to go through in order to stay out of trouble, regulations that don’t even apply to them…and this over regulation stifles business, jobs,…AND our freedom of choice as citizens.
Whether you think it is motivated by money or taking away our freedoms…the end result is the same.
Suzie, I think the government has plenty of good reasons to be involved in plenty of things. I don’t think holding a monopoly on alcohol sales is one of them, even close.
I’d like to write more…LOL..dontcha KNOW it!! But I have to take care of a few things and will be back later…I’m not ignoring anybody.
He needs to consult with some other similar “restaurant” owners in Blacksburg and Radford, as to how they get around similar ABC regs, because there is no way in hell they do . . . . yet they do.
SharonN, since you’re not responding to my post, I’ll take it as a victory!
#8 That’s like getting a trophy for last place
#7 I think it’s pretty much nailed in the column, Rick H. You have to be willing to lie.
I think most liberals would be delighted to see the ABC’s authority diminished. Its silly puritanical rules serve no purpose any longer — if they ever did.
Getting rid of the ABC rules on food and alcohol just means more “bars” w/o the grill. Hardly a freaking victory to be won there.
Maybe he does not sell enough for other reasons. This guy sure didn’t like them:
http://www.dexknows.com/business_profiles/markells_bar_and_grill-l822692864
I do not care if Virginia SELLS alcohol or not, someone is gonna, but they will and should ALWAYS regulate it. Requiring food sales be a part of it is an improvement IMO rather than a problem. We don’t “have bars” because we don’t want “bars”.
Why this (like, it seems, everything else) is a conservative vs liberal or Democrat vs Republican issue boggles my mind. But …
The “Alcoholic Beverage Control” laws are nothing more than the state protecting their tax revenues. Always has been. Why do they spend so much time and money shutting down 50 gallon stills in the outback? Or 100 square foot marijuana gardens for that matter.
Why can’t private stores sell alcoholic beverages?
How is it the government (State in this case) can’t let the free-market control itself?
And I’m afraid you can’t blame this one on a Democrat or a Republican.
This guy’s bar… ahem, restaurant is a victim of religious nuttery getting mixed into state law. The government needs to get out of the way of lawful businesses like his and tell religious lobyists that there is no way to make a formula for godly behavior through certain percentages of food sales.
“I do not care if Virginia SELLS alcohol or not, someone is gonna, but they will and should ALWAYS regulate it. Requiring food sales be a part of it is an improvement IMO rather than a problem. We don’t “have bars” because we don’t want “bars”.”
Sandi and I could not be more opposite.
“I think most liberals would be delighted to see the ABC’s authority diminished. Its silly puritanical rules serve no purpose any longer — if they ever did.”
gdad is right on.
Speak for yourself. I *want* bars. I don’t want to go get a beer and maybe listen to music and have a child in there running roughshod all over the place.
the ABC rules are obviously holdovers from a more antiquated religious time, when psychotic MADD people had political ears. That a BAR can’t post on facebook anything about alcohol is RIDICULOUS. That ABC Agents can go INTO Bars and ARREST people for being Drunk in Public, 60 seconds after finishing their first drink is RIDICULOUS.
They need to be stopped.
I should clarify… an ABC Agent can go into a bar, and direct local police to arrest someone for being Drunk in Public INSIDE the bar.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=125435&page=1#.T6wJzetDt8E
It happens.
I still can’t grasp that restaurants have to go to the ABC store to buy the alcohol they serve and pay the same retail price as a private individual. I’ve been told that, but is it in fact the case? How come drinks don’t cost more here than in places where establishments pay wholesale, as in other states?
If the state wants to make $$ off of alcohol, do what every other state does and tax the bejebus out of it. Then let the market do its thing. That the state monopolizes alcohol sales then hands out tickets for its usage is ironic in the extreme.
I don’t think it is as much about “godly behavior through certain percentages of food sales” as it is trying to avoid more of this kind of crap from inebriated patrons.
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/308191
Why does the public have any interest at all in just having a place to get drunk in any community? If that is ALL people want, hit the store and go home and literally knock yourself out.
I do not think it is “religious nuttery” or government gone wild to not encourage certain activities. I do not know if the law is egregiously hard to meet, but I do not think it should be abandoned.
What the hell kind of bars have kids in them pray tell? If there is a parent with a child in the bars that have music and serve alcohol around here, someone needs to call Social Services.
Alcohol abuse is a scourge in this nation and drunk drivers kill innocent people way too often for me to be upset if the police are stringent or ABC officials vigilant. Sorry, I am fairly sick and tired of the crap people want to be allowed to do in public and drunks making a spectacle is one of them.
Why do you think being drunk INSIDE a bar is not “drunk in public”?
How can a person be “Drunk in Public, 60 seconds after finishing their first drink”? The police arrested this person for no other reason than one drink? Really?
I quite going out to bars to listen to family members who are musicians due to the damned drunks and the smokers and I think getting rid of both would be a blessing.
Some interesting info here and yes Kristen they have to buy it from the ABC store too. I am not saying that the ABC is a perfect bunch or that there is not some onerous burden to some extent, I accept that modification may need to be made, but I am not willing to vote for bars.
http://www.abc.virginia.gov/licensing/abcfaq1.htm
Hey Sandi, did you see where Obama’s uncle got his license suspended for only 2 months for a DUI?
“Why does the public have any interest at all in just having a place to get drunk in any community? If that is ALL people want, hit the store and go home and literally knock yourself out.”
Why did people want brothels? Let’s punish people who harm others and not just slap them on the wrist with a little blurb in the police blotter which they can laugh about with their friends, then go get in another fight or whatever.
If the public isn’t interested, don’t go there. What interest does the public have in gay churches? The point is, the government needs to get out of business’s business.
Sandi, am thoroughly DISGUSTED with drinking and driving and drunks getting away with all kinds of irresponsible behavior, but blasting away at personal liberty has proven time and tie again to NOT be the answer.
I just have a minute again..but wanted to post this video which applies to the subject matter we are discussing. It is John Stossell’s “Illegal Everything” and you can find it here…or search YouTube for it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcNdijIIglo&feature=related
Even thinking I am relatively informed about situations where the Government is taking away our Personal liberty…this one blew ME away as to the extent of it…sort of opened my eyes about trying to regulate “morality” also.
I would even credit it with teaching me to “think” a little more like Ron Paul….which is differently that I am used to thinking..but is totally Constitutional.
Later…..
Henry, is a two-month license suspension for a DUI a light sentence? Is is lighter than other received?
Most of the time, it is a year. Did I mention he is in the country illegally?
Sandi, my first fall in Roanoke was the 2004 election year. I was in a popular local establishment with a coworker at about 1030-1100 pm on the “cocktail” side of the place – the other side had more tables and was more familyish but was non smoking.
Anyway, we were having a knock-down political brawl (I knew Kerry wasn’t a great candidate but didn’t let that interfere with my heated defense of him) and were perhaps a little loud, and the F bomb may or may not have been dropped. Well the manager of the place comes to our table and tells us that the “family” behind us was complaining about our language and yelling at eachother. In a “bar”, on Saturday night, at 11pm. So we turn around and by goodness there was this little “family”…mom, dad, and a toddler…eating dinner. Because Mom and Dad wanted to smoke with their meal, which necessitated them plunking their baby down in the bar at 11pm at night in the smoke.
People take their kids to clubs. Weird but true.
#20 – I had functioning alcoholic parents (meaning they have successful careers and are responsible people but still drink every day). I spent many evenings in bars as a child, yet my home life was as good as any child could want. I was loved and provided for handily. So you propose causing a lot of unnecessary and unfounded trouble for my parents because they took me along with them? That’s far more monstrous than what they did, in my opinion. Not to mention it’s a blatant abuse of taxpayer resources – any claim received by CPS has to be followed for months.
Not that I disagree with your general premise, mind you. I wouldn’t take my own children to a bar/restaurant, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to call CPS on someone who does. It’s a logical fallacy to think that a parent is unfit just because they took their child to a place that serves alcohol.
#21 – Not all who drink at bars are “damned drunks” and not all smokers are inconsiderate a-holes. I drink on rare occasions, but not since I was much younger have I been sloshed in a bar. I smoke, but I neither smoke in my home nor in any restaurants, even if they allow it.
It seems like you believe in freedom for yourself and then freedom – as you see fit – for everyone else. I presume that’s overly simplistic and at least a bit unfair to you, but just because you don’t agree with or partake in the actions and activities of others, that doesn’t make a valid argument for the abolition of such things.
I agree with those who advocate Virginia getting out of the liquor business. The Commonwealth should sell the ABC stores to private business. Take the money and split it between schools, state employee retirement funds and roads.
Sandi, you can pretty much go to any decent watering hole and find kids on a friday or saturday night. Some of my former haunts, The Brambleton Deli had kids in there, as well as Mac and Bobs. Macado’s? Hell, when I was 16, I’d be in the downtown Macado’s at 11pm on a friday getting a sandwich. They shouldn’t be in there, but I can’t stop bad parenting. Yes, they are restaurants, but let’s not kid ourselves. The Brambleton Deli has a bar at least 50 feet long, if not longer. Hello? Buffalo Wild Wings anywhere in the country!
I would much rather go to a watering hole where kids are not allowed entry and I can grab a beer with some of my friends. I don’t see why I have to host my own social event to share beers with my friends without “ordering an entree”. There are plenty of ways of SAFELY enjoying alcohol in public.
You know, i dont even have a problem with the state running ABC sales. What I do have a problem with is the fact that overzealous ABC agents are PAID to monitor “restaurants” social network feeds to make sure they are not promoting liquor. And don’t tell me that’s not true, because I know EXACTLY that it is, what their name is, and bars that have been fined and threatened to lose their liquor license over it!
Even if i didn’t morally object to the nanny state that exists within the ABC / alcohol industry within Virginia, I have a serious problem that any state employee is wasting their time on such nonsense. Money that should be going to education or public programs designed to HELP the public, rather than fine business owners.
the ABC rules are the last relic of the infamous Virginia Blue Laws that thankfully barely exist.
#27 Henry posted, “Most of the time, it is a year”
Not in MA where the DUI occurred – you have a chance to lose your license for 45-60 days if you take what’s called an alternative disposition which is a Continuance without a Finding [CWOF]. This allows a shorter period of revocation, but, heavy fines, probation, and the driver must take an alcohol education program…
Very unlike VA where DUI is a criminal offense. Many states do not consider DUI’s under criminal, but motor vehicle law.
I’m not surprised that Obama’s uncle got the standard penalty.
Nor am I surprised that Henry is trying to blow it up into something it’s not.
I think we need to see Henry’s birth certificate.
I have it on good authority that Henry was born in Albania.
John and his wife are the most wonderful people in the world. I hate to see the ABC board do this to them.
34.”I think we need to see Henry’s birth certificate.”
35.”I have it on good authority that Henry was born in Albania.”
Hey, if I have to admit that I was born in West Virginia, Henry can disclose he is foreign-born.
Of course you can go to “any decent watering hole” or restaurant with a bar and see children. I was under the impression you all wanting actual bars, like the one in this story, did not mean Outback and Applebee’s, having children in them. Lot’s of restaurants have a bar area, that is NOT the same thing as Legends, Markell’s Bar & Grill, W.R.Brews, Bravos, and Bob’s. Having children in those places is unconscionable, whether anyone is “called” or not. If you cannot admit the difference there is no need to keep discussing this.
I am sorry, the alcohol business is not an arena I want no regulation and oversight in.
What the hell am I trying to “abolish”?
#39 – “I quite going out to bars to listen to family members who are musicians due to the damned drunks and the smokers and I think getting rid of both would be a blessing.”
Sure reads like an advocacy of abolition. Maybe I misread. Please clarify if that is not what you meant. I meant neither offense nor hostility.
Thinking something is wrong, even hating it, is not the same as wanting to abolish it for those who like it. I do not like porn, child beauty pageants, circuses, zoos, animal testing, factory farms, right wingers and most jazz either. So what?
I do want dive bars. I want a place where no parent would be insane enough to bring their kid in. I want a place where steel-tip darts fly across the bar, beer is slung like water, and adults can be adults. I’m not saying it belongs out in Bedford in suburban white land… im just saying it should exist. There’s a market for it, and there’s a group of proselytizing MADD mother prudes who want to stop me from enjoying it responsibly.
It’s sort of like how the Republicans are trying to stop gay people from enjoying their life, when it largely doesn’t affect them.
#23 Henry really just can’t come up with anything, can he? Sad, sad Freeper stuff.
#41 – Is my PC typing in Farsi again?
“I think getting rid of [them] would be a blessing.”
is not the same as
“I do not like [them].”
It’s not like I’m misquoting you or anything, and you were given the chance to clarify. Instead, you chose to muddle it even further. It’s really not hard to say, “I can see how that could be construed as calling for abolishing those things, but that isn’t how I actually feel.” You won’t lose any face. That would be the mature, reasoned response. Foolish me.
I suppose making an irrelevant list of other things that you dislike and saying, “So what?” is much better at clearing the air, though. I had you pegged as being more intelligent than that; a mistake that won’t be made again, I assure you.
Again, thinking something is wrong, even hating it, is not the same as wanting to abolish it for those who like it. I do think it would be a blessing if pornography, child beauty pageants, circuses, zoos, animal testing, factory farms, right wingers and most jazz did not exist. Does that give me the right, much less the power to “abolish” them or call for them to be abolished? You are nit picking in a land of giant bones for some reason. If I am not mature and reasoned enough for you, stop talking to me. I think I’ll live without you.
BTW, people here are actually calling for the ABC laws to be abolished, but my imperfect articulation has you in a whirl?