DUI Attorney in Artesia

Reviewed by Ron Chini, Esq. · CA State Bar No. 263308 · DUI defense attorney in Irvine, CA since 2009.
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How DUIs are policed in Artesia

Artesia does not run its own police department, and it has never had a sheriff's sub-station inside city limits. The city contracts with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, patrolled directly out of the Lakewood Sheriff's Station, 5130 Clark Avenue, Lakewood, CA 90712, (562) 623-3500 — a contract that has run continuously since Artesia incorporated on May 29, 1959. Lakewood Station's coverage area also includes Bellflower, Hawaiian Gardens, Lakewood, Paramount, and nearby unincorporated county pockets. Inside Artesia's own 1.62 square miles, deputies patrol the Pioneer Boulevard business corridor, South Street, and 183rd Street.

Artesia is unusual geographically: it is boxed in almost entirely by one neighbor. Cerritos surrounds Artesia on the east, south, and west, with Norwalk bordering it to the north — so none of the region's freeways physically run inside Artesia's own city limits. The closest freeway segments, Interstate 605 and State Route 91 (long known as the "Artesia Freeway," a name that traces back to old Artesia Boulevard rather than the freeway actually passing through the city), sit just over the line in Cerritos. CHP's Santa Fe Springs Area office, 10051 Orr and Day Road, Santa Fe Springs — which lists Artesia among the cities in its patrol area — is the agency that typically responds to DUI stops on those nearby freeway segments; a stop on Artesia's own surface streets is made by a Lakewood Station deputy.

• Artesia has contracted with the LA County Sheriff's Department for police services since its May 29, 1959 incorporation — the city has never operated its own police department or a local sub-station.
• For fiscal year 2025–26, Artesia separately contracts with Southwest Patrol for supplemental, unarmed citywide security patrols seven nights a week across residential streets, parks, and commercial areas — coordinated with, not in place of, Sheriff's deputies. Southwest Patrol provides the same kind of supplemental coverage in several neighboring Gateway Cities, including Bellflower, Cerritos, Lakewood, and Paramount.

Where an Artesia DUI case is heard

A DUI arrest anywhere in Artesia — on Pioneer Boulevard, South Street, 183rd Street, or elsewhere in the city — is filed at the Bellflower Courthouse, 10025 E. Flower St., Bellflower, CA 90706. The Los Angeles County Superior Court's Southeast District assigns the Bellflower Courthouse jurisdiction over Artesia, Bellflower, Cerritos, Hawaiian Gardens, and Lakewood.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office prosecutes the case; Artesia does not use a city attorney for misdemeanor DUI prosecution. A misdemeanor DUI stays at the Bellflower Courthouse from arraignment through trial, and a felony-level DUI (for example, one involving injury) is routed to a felony courthouse elsewhere in the county system.

Booking and getting a car back after an Artesia arrest

An Artesia DUI arrest is booked first at Lakewood Station, 5130 Clark Avenue — that stop is just the intake step, not where anyone stays. The county's custody system takes it from there: men are generally transferred downtown into the Inmate Reception Center, Men's Central Jail, or Twin Towers, and women into the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood. Whether someone gets out on their own recognizance, posts bail, or qualifies for a cite-and-release turns on the particulars of that arrest. Family members trying to track down where an Artesia arrestee ended up can call our office for help locating the right facility.

Your car is a separate matter from the arrest itself. A routine tow after a DUI arrest usually lets you (or someone you authorize) retrieve the vehicle from the tow yard once you handle the release paperwork, towing fee, and storage fee. A mandatory 30-day impound under Vehicle Code §14602.6 is a different, more serious outcome — it applies only when the driver was also operating on a suspended or revoked license, on a restricted license without a required interlock device, or without ever having been issued one, not for a DUI arrest by itself. Ask us to check which situation applies to your stop during your free consultation.

Pioneer Boulevard, Little India, and a city boxed in by its neighbor

Artesia takes its name from the artesian wells that once surfaced naturally in the area, and for most of the 20th century it was dairy country — settled by Dutch and Portuguese farmers and known, alongside neighboring cities, as part of the "Dairy Valley" belt that supplied milk to Los Angeles well into the 1960s. The city didn't incorporate until May 29, 1959, and at just 1.62 square miles — one of the smallest cities in Los Angeles County, with roughly 10,100 people per square mile — it is hemmed in almost entirely by a single neighbor, Cerritos, on the east, south, and west, with Norwalk bordering it to the north.

Over the last four decades, the stretch of Pioneer Boulevard running through the city has developed into a dense corridor of Indian-owned jewelry stores, clothing boutiques, sari shops, and restaurants, widely known outside city hall as "Little India" — one of the largest concentrations of South Asian businesses in Southern California. The city council itself ultimately adopted a different, more inclusive label for the corridor, the "International and Cultural Shopping District," after some residents objected that a single-ethnicity name undersold the area's broader mix of immigrant-owned businesses; as of the 2020 Census, Artesia's population was 41.8% Asian (non-Hispanic) and 35.5% Hispanic or Latino. Other local landmarks include the old Artesia Water Tower near Pioneer Boulevard and 183rd Street — one of the only physical reminders of the artesian wells the city was named for — the East West Ice Palace skating rink, co-owned by Olympic figure skater Michelle Kwan, and Holy Family Catholic Church, founded in 1929 to serve the area's early Portuguese Catholic dairy-farming families.

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Ron Chini, Esq.

DUI Defense Attorney · CA State Bar No. 263308

Ron defends DUI cases across Southern California from his Irvine office, in English and Farsi — and works directly with you, not a call center.

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