TRAFFIC STOP ON HIGHWAY DEPUTIES SET UP 4-HOUR CHECKPOINT TO STOP DRUNK DRIVERS.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

LANCASTER - A Sheriff's Department checkpoint netted one suspected drunk driver, others carrying methamphetamine and marijuana, and dozens driving without licenses or with suspended or revoked licenses.

Twenty-five motorists had their cars towed away and impounded.

``It was a little bit of everything,'' said Deputy Dennis Campbell, one of the officers who manned the four-hour checkpoint Tuesday night on Sierra Highway south of Avenue L.

Sheriff's officials said the checkpoint's purpose was to detect drunk drivers and take unlicensed motorists off the streets. It was one of four checkpoints being set up in Lancaster, using a $21,576 grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety.

One checkpoint was put into action last weekend, and two more are planned for the summer. The effort is called ``You Drive and Drink, You Lose.''

``This was pretty typical for our checkpoints. The numbers weren't unexpected,'' Deputy Mark Dunkel said of Tuesday's operation.

Between 8 p.m. and midnight, deputies at the checkpoint spoke to 545 motorists. Three of those had to step out of their cars to take sobriety tests.

One woman failed a sobriety test and was arrested.

Deputies also arrested a man found with methamphetamine.

Another 28 motorists were unlicensed or driving on suspended or revoked licenses - more than 5 percent of the motorists who passed through.

The unlicensed motorists were cited and their cars impounded for up to 30 days. Some motorists who had recently expired licenses were ticketed but allowed to keep their cars, deputies said.

Nine other motorists were ticketed, about half for possession of marijuana and the others for miscellaneous traffic violations around the checkpoint.

Deputies said they do not know how many of the unlicensed drivers were illegal immigrants - an issue in the news after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rescinded a new state law that would have let illegal immigrants qualify for licenses.

``We have no way of telling that,'' Dunkel said. ``We don't go into that.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Sheriff's Deputy Steve Owen writes a citation Tuesday night for a motorist caught in Lancaster with an open bottle of brandy. The four-hour Sheriff's Department checkpoint was set up on Sierra Highway south of Avenue L.

(2) On Tuesday night, deputies at the Lancaster checkpoint spoke with 545 motorists, of whom three had to take sobriety tests.

Paul Weatherman/Special to the Daily News