Quick Release Suspended for Season : Road Checkpoints to Snare Holiday Drunks

Local police agencies announced Wednesday that they are teaming up for a holiday crackdown on drunk drivers during which they will set up sobriety checkpoints, send out roving patrols and put suspected drunk drivers in jail.

In an effort to discourage people from driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, Sheriff John Duffy is temporarily suspending the quick-release program that allows drunk-driving suspects to be released on their own recognizance or to a sober, responsible adult who offers to drive them home.

Instead, people arrested on suspicion of drunk driving from Friday night until New Year’s Day will be taken to County Jail and kept there for up to two days, or until they can post bail of $1,250, according to Deputy Leah Mitchell.

Under the quick-release program, an adult who offers to drive the suspected drunk driver home signs a form and can be liable if the suspect gets behind a wheel before he or she is sober, Mitchell said.

‘Safest Possible Holiday’

Sheriff’s deputies, California Highway Patrol officers and police from the cities in the county will go after holiday revelers who have had too much to drink by giving roadside sobriety tests and assigning patrols to be on the lookout for drunk drivers.

“The objective of this effort is to provide the safest possible holiday season for San Diego County motorists and pedestrians,” Mitchell said. “It’s a deterrent to keep intoxicated drivers off the highways in order to enhance public safety.”

San Diego police officers will staff a sobriety checkpoint at 9 p.m. Friday, but the location will not be made public until 7 that night, department spokesman Bill Robinson said. There’s a possibility, he added, that another checkpoint will be opened on New Year’s Eve.

Earlier this month, police stopped more than 700 cars at an El Cajon Boulevard roadblock in East San Diego, conducted 32 sobriety tests and arrested five people suspected of drunk driving, Robinson said. So far this year, 27 people have been arrested at San Diego police checkpoints.

“The idea of the checkpoints is not to get big numbers but rather to raise the awareness of all drivers,” Robinson said. “That’s why the location is not made public until two hours before.”

CHP spokesman Lloyd Needham said his agency and another local police department will also open a sobriety checkpoint this weekend but said it was too early to release details.

Many Checkpoints

Coronado police plan on giving roadside sobriety tests on Friday and New Year’s Eve. National City police said they will set up at least one checkpoint Friday night. Escondido police said a checkpoint has been scheduled for Dec. 30.

El Cajon and La Mesa police plan to send out roving patrols. Sheriff’s deputies said police from Carlsbad, Chula Vista and Oceanside will also be a part of the countywide campaign against drunk driving, a campaign bolstered by a U. S. Supreme Court ruling.

In October, 1987, the state Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of police roadblocks to snare suspected drunk drivers and rejected the notion that motorists should be stopped only when there is an “individualized suspicion” that they are intoxicated.

This month, the U. S. Supreme Court upheld that decision. Statewide figures show that, as of last weekend, 879 people have been arrested this year at 106 CHP sobriety checkpoints. Last year, the CHP set up 30 checkpoints throughout the state and arrested 186 suspected drunk drivers at them.