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Crime & Safety

DUI Patrols Planned in Hollywood

Beefed up anti-DUI patrols will be mounted in the Hollywood area.

Police officers and sheriff's deputies will be on the lookout for impaired and unlicensed drivers at checkpoints in Los Angeles, Pasadena and several other Los Angeles county communities beginning Friday night.

Checkpoints will be set up between 8 p.m. Friday and 2 a.m. Saturday on Hyperion Avenue at Scotland Street in Silver Lake and on Figueroa Street and Ninth street downtown, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. Beefed up anti-DUI patrols will also be mounted in the Hollywood area for eight hours beginning at 7 p.m. Friday, police said.

A six-hour checkpoint will be operated beginning at 8 p.m. Saturday on Cahuenga Boulevard at Broadlawn Drive in North Hollywood, and additional patrols will be deployed from 5 p.m. Sunday to 3 a.m. Monday in the department's Foothill patrol area in the northeast San Fernando Valley, police said.

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In Pasadena, police will be checking for impaired drivers between 7 p.m. Friday and 3 a.m. Saturday at an undisclosed location within city limits, according to Pasadena police Lt. Pete Hettema.

"Over the course of the past three years, DUI collisions have claimed three lives and resulted in 58 injury crashes harming 82 of our friends and neighbors," said Pasadena Police Chief Phil Sanchez.

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Sheriff's deputies will mount DUI and driver license checkpoints from 6 p.m. Friday to 2 a.m. Saturday at undisclosed locations in Carson, Lakewood and Pico Rivera and from 7 p.m. Friday to 3 a.m. Saturday in West Hollywood, according to a sheriff's department statement.

"Saving lives, reducing injuries, traffic collisions and property damage is important work," said Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca. "Every life is a life worth saving and we will do our utmost to help keep the public safe."

Nearly one third of traffic fatalities involve drunk or drugged driving, notes Christopher J. Murphy, director of the state Office of Traffic Safety. He said communities benefit from "the high visibility enforcement and public awareness that checkpoints provide."

Funding for the checkpoints and patrols comes from a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety though the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

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