Police Prepare for Stoner Holiday

Police will be deploying this weekend to stop and arrest alcohol and drug-impaired drivers in the department’s ongoing traffic safety campaign.

DUI saturation patrols will also deploy earlier than usual Friday, April 20, between 4:20 p.m. and 3 a.m. in areas with high frequencies of DUI collisions and or arrests.

This date is associated by many as a “national holiday for cannabis culture,” police Lt. Tim Kleiser said in a statement.

Theories about the holiday’s origin are about as numerous as there are strains of cannabis at the typical pot dispensary.

Police say that researchers who examined 25 years worth of data found a 12% increase in the relative risk of a fatal traffic crash after 4:20 p.m. on April 20 compared with identical time intervals on control days. For teen drivers, the risk is even higher.

Officers will be looking for signs of alcohol and or drug impairment, now nearly twice as prevalent among drivers than alcohol impairment. Of the drugs, marijuana was most prevalent, at 7.4 percent, slightly more than alcohol, Kleiser said.

The cost of a cab ride home is cheap compared to the $10,000 in expenses from a DUI, he said.

Monday, April 9

Domestic violence. 700 block of Temple Hills Dr. 1:11 p.m. A 56-year-old Laguna Beach man was arrested for suspicion of domestic violence with injury, a felony, against his wife. A similar offense eight months earlier led to a restraining order, court records show. In the recent incident, the victim alleged in a report to police that two days earlier she had been hit, choked and her hair pulled by her husband.

Pedestrian stop. 100 block of S. Coast Hwy. 3:23 p.m. Braden Elliot Bolton, 38, of Laguna Beach, was arrested for suspicion of making terrorist threats.

Sunday, April 8

DUI. Ruby Street. 12:22 a.m. Driver Mahyar Abdollahi Mehraban, 20, of Irvine, was arrested for suspicion of felony drunk driving as a result of sideswiping a parked car, rolling his own vehicle and hitting a utility pole. His passenger was treated for cuts and abrasions and transported for treatment.

Friday, April 6

Traffic stop. 500 block of Glenneyre St. 8:36 p.m. Dustin Paul Adams, 31, of Salt Lake City, was arrested for suspicion of possessing Suboxone without a prescription.

Thursday, April 5

Traffic stop. Broadway. Melvin Franklin Harris, 31, of Laguna Beach, was arrested for suspicion of possessing methamphetamine

Tuesday, April 3

Pedestrian stop. Main Beach. An officer contacted Perry Edward Barcal, 30, of Bloomingdale, Ill., over smoking on the beach, but arrested him for a felony bench warrant for robbery from his homestate.