Police will use grant to trace source of booze in drunk cases
February 3, 1995 No CommentsKELLY THORNTON. The San Diego Union – Tribune. San Diego, Calif.: Feb 3, 1995. pg. B.2
For a police department still coping with the death of two officers and the severed leg of another at the hands of drunken drivers, the timing is right for a crackdown.
The department received a $100,000 grant yesterday from the state department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to increase efforts against alcohol-related problems all over the city.
“We’re going to try to find out where the drunk drivers are coming from and go after the bar owners for serving irresponsibly,” Police Chief Jerry Sanders said. “In every way this grant is really going to help.”
Officers are sometimes overwhelmed by drunken drivers in, say, Pacific Beach, or by brawling drunks in, perhaps, Mission Beach, and now they’re going to get some help, Sanders said.
The grant, the first to be doled out to 25 California cities, will add a detective and a clerical position to the understaffed vice unit and will pay to train vice detectives on alcohol issues. The money will also pay for six undercover operations.
“Law enforcement in general has been spread so thin they haven’t been able to do some of that (alcohol enforcement),” said Jay Stroh, the director of ABC, who presented the check to Sanders. “We want to be proactive rather than reactive.”
The grant covers the 1995 calendar year.
