VAN NUYS : Court Orders Sale of Drunk Driver’s Car

A man convicted of drunk driving three times in four months was sentenced to a year in jail Thursday by a court commissioner who also declared his car a nuisance and directed police to sell it.

Van Nuys Municipal Court Commissioner Mitchell Block sentenced Salvador Gonzalez, 29, after he pleaded no contest to charges of drunk driving and driving without a license.

Gonzalez was ordered to turn over his 1981 Ford Thunderbird to the Los Angeles Police Department, which will sell the vehicle and return the proceeds to the city.

Block used a rarely invoked law to order the sale, said Deputy City Atty. Robert Orlich.

Gonzalez was arrested during the early morning hours of June 14 after he slammed into the back of a disabled car that had just been involved in another accident on the Ventura Freeway near Tampa Avenue in Reseda, Orlich said.

Police reported that Gonzalez, a Thousand Oaks resident, had a blood alcohol content of 0.17%, more than double the legal limit of 0.08%.

Gonzalez was previously convicted in drunk driving incidents on April 26 in Simi Valley and March 7 in Los Angeles and had been ordered not to drive, authorities said.

Gonzalez’s car will be sold under a state law that allows courts to declare a vehicle a nuisance after it is involved in three drunk driving incidents within a seven-year period.

Orlich and other prosecutors said the law is rarely used because it contains several loopholes. For example, authorities cannot sell a vehicle if it is jointly owned by two people or if it is a family’s sole means of transportation.

“It is a tool to be used . . . we keep trying everything, maybe something will work completely one of these days,” Orlich said.

A Van Nuys man, following his second drunk driving conviction on Monday, became the first person in the city to be required to install a breath analyzer in his car that prevents the vehicle from being started if the driver has been drinking.