This past Tuesday morning, a driver from Gastonia was arrested by local police and jailed on a $10,000 bond. He now faces charges as a result of impaired driving.
The man’s car had been stopped by an officer just after 1:00 a.m. Tuesday morning this week. Officer F.D. Towle of the Gastonia police department requested the driver consent to an Intoxilyzer test after noticing an odor of alcohol on the driver’s breath. Adding to suspicion was the fact that the officer found the driver to have an open container of alcohol with him inside the vehicle.
North Carolina’s open container laws state that it is unlawful to have an open container of any alcoholic beverage in the passenger area of any motor vehicle, even if the vehicle is not moving. An alcohol container is defined as an “open container” if the seal on the container has been compromised.
The results of the breath test indicated the driver had a blood-alcohol level (BAC level) of 0.12 percent, which is above North Carolina’s legal limit of 0.08 in determining the impairment of a driver.
Unfortunately for the Gastonia man, this is not the first time he has come under suspicion for DWI. The driver has apparently been convicted of DWI three times over the past 26 years, the most recent of which was in 2009. Additionally, the man just got out of prison in November after being incarcerated for four months. He had been convicted on larceny charges.
Source: Gaston Gazette “Man with 3 DWI convictions accused of drunken driving again” by Kevin Ellis 1/25/11