Orange County law enforcement has a name for their winter anti-DUI campaign: “Get Sober or Get Pulled Over.” While I prefer “Don't Be a Blitzen,” it's important to note that the getting sober or getting pulled over begins tonight with checkpoints in Tustin and Garden Grove.
Up first is the Tustin Police Department checkpoint from 8 tonight through 3 a.m. Saturday somewhere in the city, according to Sgt. Andrew Birozy.
The Garden Grove Police Department operation runs somewhere in that city from 9 tonight through 3 a.m. Saturday—with a repeat performance somewhere else in that city during the same time period Saturday night through Sunday morning, according to Lt. Robert Bogue.
The next announced checkpoint is the Newport Beach Police Department's on Wednesday.
As part of “Get Sober or Get Pulled Over,” many Orange County police agencies are holding extra patrols targeting drunken drivers. Called “saturation patrols,” these operations assign officers to specific streets known for DUI arrests, crashes and fatalities.
The Garden Grove Police Department announced its saturation patrols will begin on Christmas Eve—Dec. 24—and continue nightly through Jan. 2.
These special DUI operations are funded by California Office of Traffic Safety grants, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.