Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 23, 1993 TAG: 9311230081
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
For a while, he ran a grocery store there, selling cigarettes, sandwiches, soda pop and beer.
When his second wife died, the beer license was in her name, so he had to stop selling beer. He put in a jukebox and pool table.
He closed the business after it was broken into a few times, and the cash register drawer was stolen out of his car while he was parked at his job at Norfolk and Western Railway.
Since then, the building has gone through a series of tenants: a pottery shop, a few antique stores, not to mention the Little Beaver Truck Stop. "That lasted two months," the retired N&W engineer recalls.
He says one tenant's antique business lasted just a few months because "all she did was stay in bed and sleep." Another set of tenants smoked the place up by using a wood stove instead of the furnace.
"So it's been nothing but flustration," Wade, 73, says.
This summer, the place was vacant again, and Wade put up a "for rent" sign. He got 15 or 20 feelers, but no takers.
"Then the palm readers showed up," he says. "I couldn't figure how I could refuse to rent it. That would be discrimination. . . . You could end up with a federal lawsuit."
So he gave them a lease - not knowing that even more trouble was coming his way.
He says he didn't realize the palm-reading shop was in violation of the zoning exemption he got a few years ago for the property. Zoning administrator Chuck Supan says the county warned Wade he was in violation and - when the palm reader continued to operate - issued Wade a summons.
On Monday, Wade asked the Board of Supervisors for another zoning exemption, so the palm reader could reopen.
But he was opposed by petitions signed by 61 people, including a local minister. The petitions claimed that "this type of business would greatly harm our community by encouraging fraud and deceit."
The board denied Wade's request.
Afterward, Wade said he didn't think a palm reader would hurt a thing. In fact, one operated in the same spot - "with no problems whatsoever" - off and on from 1968 to 1976.
But he wasn't too upset by the decision. He figured he wouldn't have any problem renting the place to somebody else.
Despite the hassles with the place, "I don't plan on selling it," Wade said. "If anything happens to me, I'm going to give it to my sons."
by CNB