Winter holiday anti-DUI campaign in full swing

Sgt. Shannon Laney / South Lake Tahoe Police Department
The Winter Holiday Anti-DUI crackdown has resulted in a significant number of DUI arrests from local routine traffic enforcement and special Avoid the 6 DUI deployments overnight in South Lake Tahoe.
From 12:01 AM Friday December 16, 2011 through Sunday night, December 18th, 2011 officers from the So Lake Tahoe Police Department have arrested 4 individuals for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. In 2010 5 DUI arrests occurred during the same weekend.

On Friday morning December 16th, one driver was arrested after crashing his Toyota truck into the back of a Stateline hotel. Sunday night, two drivers were arrested from one traffic stop. While working a DUI patrol, Officers observed a blue Toyota SUV pull into the driveway of Ski Run Liquor (3460 Lake Tahoe Blvd) stopping in the middle of the driveway. They observed Wendy Ebanks, 36 year old from Longview Calif., exit the driver’s seat and get in the passenger seat. They then observed Anthony Mancini, 36 year old from Logan Utah, get in the driver’s seat and drive away. When stopped, both were intoxicated. Ebanks stated that she felt she was too intoxicated to drive any further so she had her passenger, also intoxicated, drive on.

For Friday December 23rd a DUI Checkpoint will be conducted in the city of South Lake Tahoe. Extra local DUI Saturation Patrols will continue through the weekend. All regularly scheduled traffic and patrol officers will focus efforts at stopping and arresting DUI drivers during their normal shifts. Multiple DUI/Driver’s License Checkpoints, Multi Agency DUI Task Force operations and local Roving DUI patrols are planned region wide during 17 day Winter Holiday Campaign.

Police, Sheriff and the CHP encourage all motorists to help make your community safer: Report Drunk Drivers – Call 911. DUI arrest data collection will continue through New Year’s Weekend, midnight Sunday, January 1, 2012. Funding for this program is provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.