Authorities arrest 35 motorists on drunken-driving charges at several checkpoints set up for St. Patrick's Day.
By CHRIS TISCH
Published March 19, 2004
The luck of the Irish wasn't with the 35 motorists who were arrested on drunken-driving charges during the St. Patrick's Day holiday this year in Pinellas County.
Many of the DUI arrests were made by Pinellas County Sheriff's Office deputies, who set up sobriety checkpoints in north St. Petersburg late Wednesday and early Thursday.
Deputies arrested 10 people on DUI charges during the checkpoints, most of them on Gandy Boulevard.
Clearwater police were active stopping impaired drivers, arresting eight motorists on DUI charges. Police in St. Petersburg, Pinellas Park and Treasure Island made two DUI arrests apiece, as did the Florida Highway Patrol.
Of those motorists who complied with tests of their blood-alcohol content, 11 had more than double 0.08, the level at which Florida law presumes someone is too impaired to drive. Of those, two were more than three times the limit.
The 35 DUI arrests were a high number, even for a holiday. On New Year's Eve, for example, Pinellas law officers arrested 23 motorists for DUI.
Certainly, the Sheriff's Office's checkpoints swelled the numbers.
The first checkpoint began at 8 p.m. Wednesday in the 1800 block of 62nd Avenue N. Deputies moved the checkpoint to Gandy Boulevard, near Derby Lane, after midnight.
More than 1,500 cars passed by the checkpoints, and about 350 of them were diverted inside. In addition to the 10 DUIs, deputies arrested nine people for driving with suspended licenses, four for possessing drugs or paraphernalia, one for violating probation and two with failing to take field sobriety tests, deputies said.
They issued 31 traffic citations.
The efforts Wednesday night were the latest in a series of checkpoints deputies have set up since late last year. Each checkpoint is dedicated for a victim of a drunken-driving crash. The one this holiday was dedicated to Robert Aho and Tony Garten, who were killed by an impaired driver March 22, 1987, on U.S. 19 north of State Road 590.
The impaired driver, Louis Venne, was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Deputies not working at the checkpoints were active in DUI enforcement and arrested five additional impaired motorists across the county.
On East Lake Road near Tarpon Woods Boulevard, deputies arrested James W. Langmaack, 20, on a DUI charge after he was found passed out behind the wheel of a Ford Escort about 4:30 a.m. The car was running and in drive, but Langmaack had his foot on the brake as he slept, arrest reports state.
Records showed Langmaack didn't have an active driver's license. It had been suspended for previous infractions, including DUI with injury and property damage, arrest reports state.
In addition to the DUIs, Pinellas law officers were busy making 13 arrests on charges of disorderly conduct or intoxication.
In Madeira Beach, a man was arrested on a disorderly intoxication charge just after 10 p.m. when he ran onto Gulf Boulevard with a woman on his shoulders, stopping traffic. The woman was arrested on a disorderly intoxication charge.
