Tag Archive | "DUI"

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At Township DUI Check, They Got What They Paid For

SANATOGA PA – Lower Pottsgrove police officers spent 40 overtime hours last month (June 2011) on Driving Under the Influence (DUI) checkpoint duty, township Police Chief Michael Shade reported Thursday night (July 7), with all of its $1,980 cost paid for by the federal or state governments. He can guarantee they got their money’s worth, too.

A checkpoint run by Shade’s force June 10 (Friday) in the 3000 block of East High Street, near the Sanatoga interchange of U.S. Route 422 and the Turkey Hill convenience store there, netted no fewer than six DUI arrests. One of those, he told the Board of Commissioners as part of his monthly report, was a fourth-time offender. But wait!, there’s more.

Officers also:

  • Stopped one driver for driving while under a DUI license suspension, and a second for driving under license suspension on a different charge;
  • Found six vehicles they stopped had state inspections that were expired, and discovered a seventh with an expired registration;
  • Ticketed two drivers for failure to obey traffic control devices;
  • Pulled off two drivers who were not licensed;
  • Issued a warning for a faulty brake light;
  • Seized a registration for a vehicle on which the insurance had been canceled;
  • Impounded two vehicles involved in earlier traffic violations; and
  • Recovered one vehicle that was being used without the owner’s authorization. Criminal charges in that incident are pending in the borough of Norristown.

“That was a very busy night,” Shade said in retrospect.

Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners’ July 7 meeting):

Posted in Lower Pottsgrove, Police, Sanatoga, TransportationComments (4)

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Notebook Worthy

SANATOGA  PA – Weekend (March 7-8, 2009) jottings from a reporter’s notebook, in no particular order:

It’s Either The Marketing Or The Location

A week ago Friday (Feb. 27, 2009), the Baja Beach Tanning Club at 600 Heritage Dr., Sanatoga PA, advertised on a sign facing East High Street traffic that it was giving away tanning services over the weekend. You wanted a tan, Friday through Sunday (March 1, 2008), you got it for free.

Earlier this week, the sign announcing availability of free tans was replaced with another one. Help wanted at Baja Beach, it said.  Coincidence? Doubt it. Advertising pays.

Apparently that vacancy was quickly filled. The second sign disappeared almost as fast as it went up.

By Sunday (March 8, 2009) a third, and still different, sign was erected, not by the tanning salon but by its neighbors in the shopping center, Parma Pizza. It needs help too, and is looking to hire delivery drivers.

Not just at night.

Not just at night.

Caught ‘em

Lower Pottsgrove Police received a surprise during February, police Chief Michael Shade told the township Board of Commissioners last week (March 2,2009), when they set up driving-under-the-influence checks in daytime hours as part of an effort by departments statewide to curb drunk driving. The daylight checks were “kind of unique,” Shade said. He wondered if they would yield any results because, he noted, it would be more “unusual to find DUIs during the day.”

Sadly, or happily – depending on your point of view – they were effective. His officers made a couple of arrests, according to Shade. Expect similar checks in the future.

A Local Financial Firm That’s Growing

Republican U.S. Senators Richard Shelby and John McCain made national news talk show appearances Sunday (March 8, 2009), advocating that the federal government should let some big troubled banks fail rather than commit more funds to prop them up. Mentioned most frequently was ailing Citigroup Inc.

In the continuing rumble of bad news about the banking business, it’s sometimes easy to miss the good. Locally based financial institutions, in particular, are faring pretty well. For one example look to Diamond Credit Union, headquartered on Medical Drive in Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township.

In its recent newsletter, Diamond President John Faust reports the credit union will break ground this spring for construction of its third free-standing branch office, on Route 422 West in Exeter (PA) Township across from the Sheetz convenience store and gas station. How’s he feel about expansion? “We are thrilled to be in (this) position,” Faust said.

Just One Person Can Make A Difference

When the Pottstown Area Council of Governments convenes Tuesday (March 10, 2009) in East Coventry (PA) Township for its regular monthly meeting, Lower Pottsgrove council representative Commissioner James Phillips will be in attendance as usual … but unusually prepared.

By that, Phillips indicates, he intends to make a recommendation on a new project for the council.

Phillips wasn’t specific in describing his plans last week (March 2, 2009) to colleagues on the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners, but he said he had been working with township Secretary Michele Cappelletti on an “initiative to make COG even more useful.”

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