Subject: Drunk Driving

• That's the Sound of the Police

  I'm sitting in my friend J's living roomm and I can't leave. Two of Newport Beach's finest (well, two vehicles anyway, which could mean up to four cops) have pulled over a tan SUV in the tiny parking lot in which my car is parked. To try and depart now would involve some serious 187-style behavior. Which reminds me: DO NOT DRIVE DRUNK, people. It's really not worth it. And if you do, don't drive drunk by yourself around Newport Beach after midnight. You're just begging, pleading on your hands

  March 16, 2006

• Disneyland Tourist Crime Alert

  Don't be the amusement for a crook: As a public service to Disneyland's out-of-town visitors, we've compiled a summary of serious crimes committed in the city housing the "Happiest Place on Earth" for the period of July 3 to 9. Here are the reported crimes for the week: Stolen vehicles ..................................................... 27 Grand thefts ......................................................... 20 Drunk-driving arrests .......................................... 39 Identity t

  July 13, 2007

• Bon Jovi Guitarist Arrested in Laguna Beach

  Richie Sambora: Livin' on a prayer? Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora was arrested Tuesday night on Coast Highway in Laguna Beach for drunk driving. The popular axeman was commandeering a black hummer, in whose confines sat three women, two of whom were (and still are) minors. OC Register has the story here. In June 2007, Sambora entered rehab for alcohol abuse, after reportedly flubbing his parts during taping of MTV's Bon Jovi Unplugged.

  March 26, 2008

• Whoa-oh, Drivin' on a Prayer

  If you are an average, everyday Joe with a crappy job who drinks to relieve his sorrow and gets busted for DUI when only slightly over the punitive limit, I might feel sorry for you, provided no-one was hurt by your actions. If you are a huge rock star who could easily afford not only a cab but your own personal driver, and you insist on driving intoxicated anyway -- with minors in the car, no less! -- you are doubly dumb and should be made an example of. Yes, Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi, it's

  March 26, 2008

• OC Diocese Could've Stopped Boy-Molestor Long Ago

  Not to pile on Matt “Jubal” Cunningham, OC’s blog king who infamously outed Diocese of Orange sex-abuse victims, but his recent comment about my post regarding the necessity of ridiculing the county’s pedo-priests and their apologists got me thinking. The case of Luis Eduardo Ramirez, a member of the Order of Augustinian Recollects who served at Our Lady of the Pillar in SanTana and is going to jail for his boy-molesting ways, still stinks like sulfur. Apologists for Orange Bishop Tod D.

  September 22, 2008

• Taco Bell Crime of the Week, Part I

  A weekly series in which we scan police blotters across the world to find the craziest crime occurring at an outpost of Orange County's most infamous fast-food chain... From West Virginia: A late night trip to get some fast food from Taco Bell in the Kanawha City area of Charleston, W.Va., landed a Boone County man behind bars. State troopers say Jonathan Ball was waiting in the drive-thru lane. When the vehicles ahead of Ball moved up, he sat still. A trooper went to check on him and said h

  October 6, 2008

• Dont Drink and Drive

  July 25, 2002

• Drunk Driving Pass Given By Sheriff Mike Carona?

  "Nobody's going to pop an assistant sheriff for a deuce. In other words, I wouldn't be arrested for drunk driving." --Don Haidl, a businessman who'd been named assistant sheriff by Mike Carona after he'd illegally funded Carona's first campaign for Orange County sheriff, testifying today about what Carona promised him as a perk for his support. (R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly)

  November 12, 2008

• Tucked Up

  A Long Beach patient sues Dr. Brian West over a tummy tuck she claims went awry

  January 17, 2008

• MADD's Not Buying Study That Shows Lower Drinking Age Saves Lives

  Many of you reading this were not even born yet, but way, way, back in the 1990s, the early days when this was your daddy's OC Weekly, Mike Males was moonlighting stories for us while attaining a PhD in social ecology from UC Irvine. For instance, in February of 1999, Males wrote "Here Come the New Barbarians!," making it one of those rare stories from that long ago attainable from our online archive. Indeed, as link followers can see, the piece is so old timey that paragraph breaks had not yet

  January 8, 2009

• MADD Has Become "a Tastless Joke," According to Study Author

  You were told here about a study published in the Californian Journal of Health Promotion that argues California should lower its drinking age for beer and wine to 18 and set up a system of low-alcohol bars. Mike Males, the study's author and senior researcher at the San Francisco-based Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, based that finding on statistical analysis that suggests such a move would reduce violent deaths among 18-20 year-olds by 9 percent. As ind

  January 9, 2009

• Help Titan Jon Wilhite, Honor Titan Courtney Stewart

  It's been highly publicized that Angels rookie pitcher Nick Adenhart, 22, was killed in a collision just after midnight Friday. Some reporters have even added that Courtney Frances Stewart, the 20-year-old Diamond Bar resident who was driving the Mitsubishi Eclipse Adenhart rode in, and another passenger, Henry Nigel Pearson, 25, of Manhattan Beach, were also killed.There has been less mentioned about the fourth person in the car, lone survivor Jon Wilhite, who at press time had his condition up

  April 14, 2009

• Under Wraps

  Many of Dr. Brian West's patients didn't know he was in the state medical board's substance-abuse-diversion program. At least six of them claim they're paying the price

  January 10, 2008

• Trendzilla

  November 24, 2005

• Remote Hog

  July 6, 2006

• Springtime Is the Right Time . . .

  April 6, 2006

• 'Youre a Grade A, Prime Choice, Asshole. That Is All'

  July 21, 2005

• Misjudgments

  June 16, 2005

• Butthole Surfer

  March 24, 2005

• Laguna Beach: 911

  September 30, 2004

• Driving Ms. Dazed

  January 23, 2003

• Saturday Night at the Blue Beet

  February 7, 2002

• Letters

  June 21, 2001

• Road Rules

  June 14, 2001

• Is That a Shiv In My Butt?

  January 11, 2001

• UPDATED: Autopsy Report: Adenhart Driver Also DUI

  Shortly after midnight on April 9, Andrew Gallo drove his van through a red light at Lemon Street and Orangethorpe Avenue in Fullerton and smashed into a car passing through the intersection. Gallo escaped the collision unharmed, got out of his van and ran from the scene. Not so lucky was the other car's driver, Courtney Stewart, a 20-year-old college student from Diamond Bar, and passengers Henry Pearson and Nick Adenhart, the 22-year-old Anaheim Angels pitcher--all of whom died at the scene--a

  June 11, 2009

• Miracle on the 73: TBN Personality Turns Wine into a Double DUI

  It's telling about the sad state of religion reporting in Orange County, one of the founts of American Christianity, that no one has yet to report this: a major Trinity Broadcasting Company personality has pleaded guilty to two felony DUIs that put a 70-year-old man in the hospital with serious injuries.On April 26, around 10 p.m., one Stephen Eugene Galiher was speeding at least over 85 miles per hour in his company-owned BMW on the 73 Freeway near the 55 Freeway interchange when he smashed int

  June 21, 2009

• Autopsy Report: Angels Pitcher Adenhart's Driver Was DUI

  June 18, 2009

• Wilhite and MADD Get Support From Angels and "Ball Hawk"

  <br/><a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&brand=foxsports&vid=fde644e7-f0f1-4dba-b689-30e71b3a9463" target="_new" title="Happy to be alive">Video: Happy to be alive</a> Before Friday evening's Angels game, Fox Sports Network carried a short video piece on Jon Wilhite visiting Angels Stadium followed by the young accident survivor joining his father on the Angels

  July 27, 2009

• Crime Time: Stabbings, Curfews, Drunk Marines, Drunk Councilman and Van's a-Rockin'

  It's the Weekly's weekly round-up of local police calls--now with more stabbings and [alleged] drunken-driving politicians . . . Courtesy Orange County Sheriff's DepartmentKnew those Trader Joe's bags were good for something . . .​MONDAY, JULY 27Cash and Carry A man walked up with a Trader Joe's bag in hand to a teller at the Wells Fargo branch near Alicia Parkway and Charlinda Drive in Mission Viejo around 12:45 p.m. He asked for and received cash before walking out. Surveillance cameras reve

  August 4, 2009

• If Drunk Drivers Who Kill Face Murder Charges, Why Not Charge City Councilman With Attempted Murder?

  Watch CBS Videos Online Sunday night, 60 Minutes replayed "DWI: Was It Murder?" Reporter Bob Simon interviewed a prosecutor who pursues murder charges against drunken drivers whose traffic collisions result in deaths of people in the other vehicles. Nassau County, New York, district attorney Kathleen Rice's first successful prosecution against just such a drunken driver resulted in a second-degree murder conviction and sentence of 18 years to life in prison against a 24-year-old insurance salesm

  August 5, 2009

• OC Reality TV Produces (At Least) 6 Who've Drawn Police Calls [UPDATED]

  Too much reality for Orange County law enforcement (clockwise from top left): Ryan Alexander Jenkins, Josh Waring, Renzo Gamboa, Dennis Rodman, Jason Wahler and Matt Keough.​ UPDATED TO REFLECT MURDER CHARGE, CRIMINAL BATTERY COMPLAINT AGAINST JENKINS. If anyone in Orange County with a Hispanic surname, baggy jeans and a tattoo can be branded "gang affiliated" and therefore subjected to a life as a suspect in any goddamn local crime, then why the hell can't scofflaws tied to reality TV

  August 20, 2009

• Disneyland Tourist Crime Alert

  Yes, the famous theme park calls itself the "Happiest Place on Earth" and countless kids and adults love the place with good reason, but there's a dark side to the Disneyland area. As a public service for park visitors please remember that the streets around Disneyland are crime magnets. If you don't believe it, consider a summary of only reported Anaheim crime for the week leading up to July 3: Stolen vehicles ..................................................... 26 Prostitution ..........

  July 7, 2007

• UPDATED: LA Deputy Who OC Deputies Tried to Protect From DUI Test Gets 6 Months for '08 Crash

  UPDATED WITH SENTENCING CLARIFICATION . . . A deputy driving a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Chevrolet sports utility vehicle (but not necessarily this one) was convicted of DUI today.​The Orange County District Attorney's Office originally announced the sentence for Robert Andrew Moran--the 43-year-old Buena Park resident and veteran Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy who drove a department SUV while under the influence last year and plowed into another car, injuring two pe

  October 2, 2009

• Updated: DUI Crackdown In OC's Three Biggest Party Towns Tonight

  ​Watch out, sinning citizens of OC's sinningest towns. The OC Sheriff's Department will be on the streets tonight looking for drunk drivers as part of a federal anti-DUI program that targets "areas that have a high incidence of DUI related arrests and collisions."So, naturally, they're headed for the county's three biggest party zones: Lake Forest, Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Magarita.That's right. Those of you drinking Patron with your pies at Cocos off Crown Valley, beware. Think twice be

  October 16, 2009

• 2009 Postseason Throwdown: Think and Drive

  DUI-OrangeCounty.comWhat pen, officer?​As this keyboard is being drooled over, the Angels have taken a 4-0 lead over the Yankees in the first inning of Game 5 of the ALCS. ​ If the lead held by the time you read this, that means there will be no need to drown season-ending sorrows and go driving through Garden Grove Saturday night.However, there's a whole lot of baseball left, and Game 6 (if necessary) is Saturday evening. The potential for sorrow-drowning remains, as does celebratory hoist

  October 23, 2009

• Police Will Haunt Drunk Drivers on Halloween

  Penningtron / Flickr / Creative Commons​If you're driving on Friday or Saturday, skip the candy corn martinis and stick to the virgin blood punch: The OC Sheriff's Department says it'll be cracking down on drunk driving this weekend. The statewide "Avoid the 12" program will be in effect. That means there'll be extra DUI patrols on the road, and even cops on regular duty will be looking to prevent drunk-driving-related accidents.There's good cause for a crackdown, says the OCSD press release:A

  October 30, 2009