Drunks not reliable, Hermosa Beach city commissioner says, for naming where they drank
by Dan Blackburn
An ongoing effort by the Hermosa Beach Police Department to identify local bars responsible for sending drunks onto the streets has been “largely ineffective,” according to the city commissioner who suggested the practice.
Since 2017, officers arresting individuals for driving under the influence or drunk in public would ask where the arrestee had been drinking. The results would then be published three times annually as part of alcohol-serving establishments conditional use permit (CUP) review.
In each of the past three reports Baja Sharkeez has led the list of those places recalled by intoxicated people as the last place in which they consumed alcohol.
But the innovator of the data-gathering plan no longer has confidence in its results, he said.
“I was the one who suggested making that change,” said Planning Commissioner Rob Saemann, “to direct police officers making arrests in either driving under the influence or drunk in public to ask at which establishment they had been drinking. My motivation was that some bars were certainly over-serving some people.”
But now, Saemann told fellow commissioners Tuesday, “I don’t know what the answer is, but honestly asking them where they drank last doesn’t seem to be too effective.”
Saemann said he recently asked Police Chief Paul LeBaron if the data being collected is “having any results. We don’t seem to be doing anything to reduce the number of DUIs. And he said, ‘You have to remember that while we’re making the arrest, these people are drunk. The information they give us is really kind of unreliable because they only say the last place they remember drinking.’”
LeBaron told the commissioner that arrestees “may only remember being there and having a drink, and they may have just walked in, had one drink and then come out and then got arrested.”
Saemann added, “Information about where they were drinking was meant to be a useful tool to help the commission and the police get a handle on where things might be going wrong. So this doesn’t seem to indicate what I think we were hoping for.”
Commission Chairman David Pedersen suggested Saemann “convey this information to (LeBaron) about the plan’s effectiveness.” ER