Santa Barbara County Vintner's Festival DUI Enforcement Results

Lompoc

Law-enforcement officers could not find even one DUI suspect in their  intense patrols of venues in the Santa Barbara County Vintners’  Festival on Saturday, April 19.

“This is excellent news,” said Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Deputy  Win Smith, who coordinates ‘Avoid the 12’, the countywide DUI  crackdown funded by the California Office of Traffic Safety.

The DUI task force included officers from Santa Barbara, Lompoc,  Guadalupe and Santa Maria along with UCSB as well as California State  Parks officers and sheriff’s deputies. CHP officers on special  festival patrols also came up with a zero in the DUI arrest column.

“There was a significant increase in traffic, but we saw a great many  buses, tour vans and limousines. We congratulate wine enthusiasts on  their wisdom in arranging for sober transportation well in advance.  This was even better than last year, when we could only find one DUI  arrest.”

Deputies and officers on the task force made 30 traffic stops,  conducted nine DUI investigations but only arrested two drivers on  suspicion of impaired driving, neither in conjunction with the  festival, he reported.
“Avoid the 12” officers stopped a 79-year-old woman for making a left  turn from the wrong lane and found that she was driving on a suspended  license from a previous DUI conviction. They cited her and towed her  car under the state’s 30-day impound law.

Officers stopped a woman in Solvang because her two four-year-old  children were walking around in their minivan while she was driving  and charged her with DUI and child endangerment after she admitted to  drinking while driving the children to several locations in Santa  Barbara and Buellton.

A 17-year-old had two impaired juvenile friends and open containers of  alcohol in his car when he was pulled over in Lompoc. They had been  drinking at a friend’s house with no adult supervision. Officers cited  all three and released them to their parents.