No, not at this time, in 2021 the Las Vegas police have done away with DUI checkpoints and are taking a new approach to getting impaired drivers off the streets. The new approach involves officers saturating an area and looking for impaired drivers in that vicinity. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department has affectionately named this police tactic a “Blitz.”
“Instead of going out and fishing, we wanted to go out and be hunters,” said Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Bret Ficklin. “We want to take an active, proactive approach to finding DUI drivers. We’re sending resources around the whole area and actively look for DUI drivers.”
The DUI Strike Team patrols the city in a targeted blitz, usually picking one Saturday night each month to send up to 70 officers from multiple jurisdictions into a section of town to scout out impaired drivers.
As an example, during one of these Blitzes in October 2021, the Las Vegas Police reported the following:
“On Saturday night, officers stopped more than 160 vehicles and made 13 DUI arrests.
Police also issued 40 citations, recovered three guns and made one felony arrest.
The DUI blitz was part of an ongoing effort aimed at catching and stopping impaired drivers.”
These Blitzes occur about twice a month and they do not have to conform to rules regarding DUI checkpoints.
If you are stopped during one of these blitzes and the police officer smells alcohol or the scent of marijuana from the car, the officer will form a reasonable belief that the driver is under the influence of either alcohol or marijuana. They can request the driver to take a sobriety test and when the driver fails the field sobriety test, the police officer can request the driver to take a blood or urine test to confirm the level of THC in their blood. The driver will be placed on hold and will not be allowed to leave until they have submitted to a blood or urine test. When working with the Spartacus Law Firm and our Las Vegas marijuana DUI attorney, we’ll make sure we review the sobriety test in detail and determine if there are any issues that can present reasonable doubt in court or dispute the sobriety tests validity.