35 arrests for drunk driving in Nassau County

With family parties, college students home from school and general holiday merriment, authorities call Thanksgiving weekend among the year's busiest for boozing.

And Long Island police agencies say they are tailoring their patrols accordingly.

During a 12-hour stretch beginning Thanksgiving eve, cops across Nassau County County arrested 35 suspected drunk drivers - more than four times the number arrested on an average night, authorities said Thursday.

The s arrests were made between 9 p.m. Wednesday and 9 a.m. Thursday, police said in a news release.

On an average night, eight or nine drivers are arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, said a Nassau police spokesman, Det. Sgt. Anthony Repalone.

Repalone credited the spike in overnight arrests with the county and village departments' stepped-up effort to combat drunken driving - patrols that will continue through the weekend.

In Suffolk County, two bartenders were ticketed Wednesday night in a sting focused on Village of Port Jefferson bars suspected of serving alcohol to minors, authorities said.

Most of the bars visited wouldn't let an underage police volunteer into the bar, but at least two bartenders, at Grumpy Jack's and Tumbleweed's, did - and were ticketed for giving the minor alcohol, Suffolk police said.

Charged with a misdemeanor related to the provision of alcohol to minors are Grumpy Jack's bartender John Gunderson, 29, of Highview Lane, Ridge, and Tumbleweed's bartender Kenneth Sandt, 44, of Floyd Bennett Drive, Sound Beach, police said.

Gunderson and Sandt are to appear Feb. 9 in First District Court in Central Islip Feb. 9, and Grumpy Jack's, located at 28 Oakland Ave., and Tumbleweed's, located at 242 E. Main St., would be referred to the State Liquor Authority, which can discipline bar owners for serving minors, police said.

The bars' management couldn't be immediately reached for comment Thursday morning.

By MATTHEW CHAYES
Posted Thursday, November 27, 2008

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