Search for drug suspect ends near Harrisburg.

Byline: Rebecca Nolan The Register-Guard

HARRISBURG - The former owner of a Springfield nightclub who eluded narcotics agents for months was captured this week in a rural area near Harrisburg.

Scott Alan "Doc" Driessen, 38, a convicted felon, was wanted on more than a dozen drug charges in at least three Oregon counties. He was arrested about 3 p.m. Tuesday at a travel trailer parked on property located at 20875 Powerline Road.

Agents found a loaded pistol on the front seat of a pickup truck he drove to the property, said Eugene police Sgt. Lee Thoming, head of the Lane County Interagency Narcotics Enforcement Team. They also found a methamphetamine lab, a loaded assault rifle, two pistols and several hundred rounds of ammunition in the back of the truck, Thoming said.

Driessen, former owner-manager of Hollywood Taxi on Springfield's Main Street, was being held Wednesday in the Lane County Jail on multiple drug- and weapon-related charges. His bail was set at more than $1.2 million.

INET agents had been investigating Driessen's involvement in manufacturing and selling methamphetamine for several months.

He slipped from their grasp in October, when agents served a search warrant at a rental home in north Eugene. Officers found a methamphetamine lab set up in several rooms of a house on Golden Gardens Street and arrested one man on charges of manufacturing, delivery and possession of drugs. However, their main suspect, Driessen, was not home at the time of the raid, police said.

In December, agents learned that Driessen allegedly told an associate that he "would not be taken alive," Thoming said. He also allegedly threatened the life of INET Detective Dave Burroughs.

A month later, members of the Lane and Marion county drug teams along with Salem and Keizer police served a search warrant in Keizer looking for Driessen and another meth lab. Thoming said they found the meth lab, but not Driessen.

Douglas County also had issued a felony arrest warrant for Driessen on charges that he manufactured meth and was a felon in possession of a firearm.

This week, INET detectives, with help from Oregon State Police and the Linn County sheriff's office, tracked Driessen to the Harrisburg trailer. Also on Tuesday, they served search warrants at a house at 655 N. Eighth St. in Harrisburg, and at a storage unit in the city. Agents found a meth lab inside the unit, Thoming said, and evidence of a lab at the house.

Driessen is former head bartender at the now-defunct Mill Camp Saloon in Springfield. He also tended bar at the Red Lion and Valley River Inn, and was instrumental building the popularity of Coconut Joe's atop the Eugene Hilton while serving as head bartender. In 1997, he took over as owner-manager of the 535 Club in Springfield and converted it into Hollywood Taxi.