‘It’s unbelievable’: Covert police team in B.C.’s Fraser Valley finds alarming number of impaired drivers

Police are staking out liquor stores to pull impaired drivers off the roads this holiday season.

A police officer in an unmarked truck scopes out the parking lot of an Abbotsford, B.C., liquor store.

His mission? To get impaired drivers off the road.

“We’ve got about, I think, five liquor stores covered right now,” Const. Rob Dyck told CTV News.

Dyck is part of an Abbotsford Police Department traffic enforcement team that scours the Fraser Valley city, looking for drunk drivers.

“As soon as it sort of becomes after dinner time, we start hunting the liquor stores, the drinking establishments, the restaurants and checking cars—pulling them over and checking for sobriety,” the officer explained when CTV News spent a night observing the team’s covert work.

It didn’t take long that evening for one of the officers to find an impaired driver leaving a liquor store parking lot.

“The driver eventually provided a breath sample, resulting in a fail, meaning the driver is going to get a 90-day driving suspension and the vehicle gets impounded for 30 days,” explained Dyck, adding that the driver will spend thousands to get his vehicle back.

Under the law, police can stop any driver to check licensing, and also demand a roadside breath sample, even if there is no suspicion the driver is impaired.

Whether it’s attributable to stepped-up enforcement, or more drunk drivers on the road, Abbotsford police have been finding impaired drivers in alarming numbers.

“It’s unbelievable, but yeah, we’re seeing the numbers increase,” Dyck said.

Abbotsford police say they’ve taken more 1,165 impaired drivers off the street this year alone. Last year, the total was significantly lower at 875.

And police say they’re not just finding people drinking and driving at night.

“A good 50 per cent of the (impaired drivers) that we’re finding are first thing in the morning,” Dyck said.

Department spokesperson Sgt. Paul Walker explained that they will encounter morning drivers who have been drinking through the night.

“They’re running out of alcohol. They’re going to the liquor store when it opens in the morning, typically that’s around 9 o’clock. So they’re hung over, they’re intoxicated, they’re getting in there, behind the wheel,” Walker said.

He said those getting caught come from all walks of life.

They include everyone from “professional Class 1 drivers, normal Class 5 drivers, to parents enroute to pick up their children after school,” he said.

Dyck said one of the extreme impaired driving cases his department encountered involved a mom—who was already required to use an ignition interlock device in her car—being pulled over again.

“She provided a breath sample and she was impaired, and ended up having… her child in her car that had been blowing into the ignition interlock so the car could keep running,” he recalled.

Police say enforcement alone won’t end impaired driving.

“It’s going to be the liquor establishments, tightening up some of their rules there, ensuring their patrons aren’t over-served,” said Walker. “It’s going to be the friends and family that are at those parties, seeing person X drinking too much and going, ‘Hey, how are you getting home?’ and maybe helping them get home.”

He also encourages other motorists to report impaired drivers to 911.