By Reid Forgrave
The Cincinnati Enquirer

SHARONVILLE - A sobriety checkpoint that stopped more than 300 drivers here Saturday night and Sunday morning netted four drunk drivers, a smattering of other arrests and a gun, police say.

The checkpoint was operated in front of the Sharonville Municipal Building at 10900 Reading Road between 10:30 p.m. and 2:30 a.m. by officers from 10 police agencies.

Of the drivers stopped, 16 were given field sobriety tests, which resulted in four people arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.

The average blood alcohol content of the arrested drivers was .157 percent, nearly twice the legal limit of .08 percent.

Those are fairly typical numbers for a sobriety checkpoint, police said.

On top of the drunken driving arrests, police issued 45 seat belt citations, cited five people for driving under suspended licenses, and arrested one for a firearm violation and four for misdemeanor drug violations.

The average motorist was stopped for about 20 seconds, police said.

A total of 34 officers from Sharonville, Ohio State Highway Patrol, Cincinnati and seven other law enforcement agencies near Sharonville participated in the sobriety checkpoint, organized by the Hamilton County DUI Task Force.

The task force was formed this year to reduce drunken driving in Hamilton County. In 2002, there were 1,104 crashes in the county that involved a driver who was under the influence of alcohol. Nearly 40 percent of those crashes resulted in serious injury or death.

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E-mail rforgrave@enquirer.com