Councilmen Propose Ordinance to Let Drunk Drivers’ Cars Be Seized, Sold

Drive drunk in Los Angeles and you might lose your car, if a proposed law is approved by the city.

With the backing of the police chief and city attorney, Councilmen Greig Smith and Dennis Zine asked the City Council on Wednesday to draft an ordinance that would allow the city to seize and auction vehicles whose drivers are suspected of being under the influence.

Although drunk driving accidents have declined in the last three years citywide, Smith said they still totaled about 7,500 in that period and killed about 100 people.

In the northwest San Fernando Valley, however, DUI crashes increased 24% from 2001 to 2003, he said.

“This seizure legislation sends the message loud and clear that risking the lives and safety of others by driving under the influence will not be tolerated by the city of Los Angeles,” Smith said.

City laws allow the seizure of vehicles involved in illegal street racing, prostitution, illegal dumping and narcotics violations.

In the last year, the city has seized 102 vehicles and collected $66,000, according to City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo’s office.

Delgadillo said he supported Zine and Smith’s idea.

“The inherent danger is that drinking and driving is a habitual problem,” Delgadillo said. “We’re going to look at the law and see what we need to do in order to literally take the wheel away from drunken drivers.”

Smith and Zine envision the new ordinance as allowing police to seize a car once officers determine that a driver’s blood-alcohol level exceeds the legal limit.

The idea of seizing the car of someone not yet convicted of a crime has raised the concern of civil libertarians.

“It undermines the bedrock of legal principle in this country --that you are innocent until proven guilty -- to punish somebody before they are convicted,” said Ben Wizner, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

Wizner said Los Angeles residents should be concerned about giving a police officer the power to take away vehicles, which are essential to many people’s livelihood.

But, Delgadillo said, “car seizures are unique” because vehicles “are in fact instrumental in the commission of the crime. A drunken driver can wreak havoc and cause untold amounts of carnage.”

The proposal, announced at Parker Center, was endorsed by Police Chief William J. Bratton.

“We can arrest and jail a driver under the influence,” Bratton said.

“But unless we can take away their keys and their cars,” he said “... they can and will continue to be a deadly menace on city streets.”