Local

Bar may have overserved man before I-77 crash injuring construction workers

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The investigation into a crash last week in which a vehicle plowed into five construction workers on Interstate 77 has expanded past the driver, who is accused of getting behind the wheel drunk.

PAST COVERAGE: Suspected drunk driver crashes into 5 construction workers on I-77

Authorities are looking into whether a bartender at a Charlotte bar knowingly served the driver too much alcohol.

State records show Snug Harbor was fined once last year by the Alcohol Beverage Control Commission, but the bar has never been investigated for anything as serious as this wreck.

The bar and a bartender could face consequences after the I-77 crash.

Charles Breeding, 26, is accused of driving intoxicated when he plowed through safety barriers and hit the workers, who were all rushed to the hospital.

Breeding failed his road sobriety tests and blew three times the legal limit on two breath tests, scoring a 0.19, according to a warrant.

The legal limit is 0.06.

Breeding admitted he was at the Snug Harbor bar in Plaza Midwood before the crash, the warrant indicated.

He told the officer "it was a mistake he drove" and that he'd drunk "three shots and two whiskey gingers" while at the bar.

"If there is someone at your bar intoxicated, and you know it, you have to turn them away,” said Mike Crowley, with the Mecklenburg County ABC.

The North Carolina Highway Patrol asked his office to investigate whether Breeding was overserved while at Snug Harbor, Crowley said.

"These are hard cases to prove,” he said.

Investigators will check surveillance video from the night of Breeding's visit to the bar to see if he appeared intoxicated while there.

They'll also check to see what he drank and in what time period.

Breeding faces DWI charges.