A Pitkin County sheriff’s deputy played the Grinch on Saturday afternoon, arresting a Snowmass man who was wearing a Santa Claus hat as he hung Christmas lights on a tree.
Apparently he was fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-lling down drunk.
A sheriff’s office report states they received a report from the Old Snowmass post office of a man in a red pickup truck driving drunk.
On the scene, an alleged witness fingered the merry-making man in the Santa hat and said he’d been driving the red pickup while intoxicated.
The alleged drunken driver and Yuletide decorator, David Dhuyvetter, 55, was red-eyed and smelled like alcohol, according to the report. He was taken to Pitkin County Jail and booked for drunken driving and driving with an excessive blood alcohol content.
In other police news
Local crime was heavy on DUI arrests this weekend:
— A 19-year-old Denver man was pulled over in Aspen early Sunday morning for allegedly speeding, and police say he was also drunk. They arrested the driver, William Lawrence, for drunken driving and underage drinking.
Authorities say his passenger was also 19 and also drunk. He allegedly said he’d been given drinks by a woman at the Belly Up, where one-man-band Keller Williams had played. They gave the passenger a summons for underage drinking and put him in a Tipsy Taxi bound for Carbondale.
— Two men were arrested within hours of one another at the same Basalt intersection for drunken driving last weekend.
A Basalt policeman says he observed a driver weaving across the center line on Two Rivers Road. He stopped the driver, Brandon Perea, 31, on Two Rivers Road at Aspen Junction and arrested him after the man allegedly failed a roadside sobriety test.
Later, around 2 a.m., police stopped another man for speeding on the same spot and arrested him for drunken driving after he failed a sobriety test. Police say Timothy Thompson, 38, of Texas, registered a .142 blood alcohol level.
— Police say they pulled over a Truscott man for driving without headlights around 1:40 a.m. Sunday morning and found he smelled like alcohol. Brian Shearer, 53, allegedly failed a roadside sobriety test and was arrested for drunken driving.
— Compiled By Andrew Travers
