Abbeville police to have extra holiday patrol

Plenty of celebrating will be done this holiday season with Christmas parties and the like.
With that comes the chance of having too much to drink. Abbeville Police Chief Tony Hardy is urging anyone who does plan on consuming alcohol to have back-up plan to get home.
“Please have a designated driver,” Hardy said. “There are plenty of other options than drinking and driving.”
For those who do decide to get behind the wheel after a few drinks, the Abbeville Police Department will have extra patrol during the holidays. The extra patrol hours are made possible through a grant from the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission (LHSC).
The grant will allow the department to have two more cars out in the city. Hardy said those two patrol cars have an impact.
“Believe it or not it is big,” Hardy said. “Several people were
arrested last year for DWI just because we had the two extra cars on the road.”
The two cars help logistically.
“If the shift gets busy and they run across a DWI,” Hardy explained, “they just call that extra unit and it doesn’t hold the shift down.
“The patrol working with the grant money handles it.”
The Abbeville Police used a similar grant from the LHSC this summer. The department utilized a portion of the grant at that time to conducted a pair of checkpoints. Those resulted in a half-dozen DWI arrests, among other citations being issued. Hardy said no check points are scheduled as of Monday.
“I’m not saying we won’t do one but we don’t have one scheduled,” Hardy said.
Again the extra patrol will be greatly utilized during the holidays. Hardy said this time of year is indeed one that law enforcement sees an increase of drinking and driving.
“That is not a myth,” Hardy said. “It’s true. People are going to parties and things like that.”
There is a simple solution to over consumption, one that Hardy said he cannot overstress.
“Find an alternative to driving yourself,” he said. “Get a designated driver or call a cab. If you get in a bind, call the police (893-2511) and we will find someone to get you. In nothing else, I will get you home.
“A DWI will alter your life for a long time.”