DUI Attorney in Commerce

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 Commerce

Commerce does not run its own sworn police department. Like neighboring Cudahy and Maywood, it is a contract city policed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's East Los Angeles Station, headquartered at 5019 E. 3rd St. in East Los Angeles. Commerce supplements that contract with its own Public Safety Division: non-sworn Community Safety Officers (CSOs) who handle traffic direction, parking enforcement, vacation watches, and reports on suspicious activity, but who do not make DUI arrests themselves. A DUI stop anywhere in Commerce — on Washington Blvd, Atlantic Blvd, Eastern Ave, or in the lots around the Citadel Outlets or Commerce Casino — is still an LASD arrest.

Commerce's freeways and industrial corridors fall under the California Highway Patrol's East Los Angeles Area office, at 1601 Corporate Center Drive in Monterey Park, which patrols the I-5, I-710, I-10, and SR-60 corridors serving roughly three million people and a heavy volume of commercial truck traffic moving between the Port of Long Beach and downtown Los Angeles. The California Office of Traffic Safety's 2023 ranking report for Commerce (population group E, average population 12,185) recorded 13 DUI arrests (ranked 32 of 103 comparable cities), 14 alcohol-involved collisions (ranked 12 of 103), and 18 nighttime collisions (ranked 4 of 103) — figures that change year to year and should be checked against the current OTS report rather than assumed.

• Surface-street DUI stops on Washington Blvd, Atlantic Blvd, Eastern Ave, Telegraph Rd, and in the Citadel Outlets or Commerce Casino parking areas — generally LASD East Los Angeles Station.
• Freeway DUI stops on I-5, I-710, I-10, or SR-60 through Commerce — generally the CHP East Los Angeles Area office.
• Non-sworn city Community Safety Officers may be first on scene for traffic control but refer arrests to LASD.

Where a Commerce DUI case is heard

Commerce has no city-prosecutor track for DUI, so the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office files both misdemeanor and felony Commerce DUI cases. Cases arrested by LASD's East Los Angeles Station — which also covers Commerce, Cudahy, and Maywood — have historically been filed at the East Los Angeles Courthouse on East Civic Center Way. Because Los Angeles County has been shifting where some criminal matters are filed and heard, confirm your exact courtroom from your citation or with the court before your first appearance rather than assuming the historical venue still applies. Ron Chini appears throughout the county's courts and will confirm your assigned department as soon as the case is filed.

Booking and getting a car back after a Commerce arrest

Someone arrested for DUI in Commerce is first processed at the LASD East Los Angeles Station jail, 5019 E. 3rd St. — a short-term stop, not a long-term facility. From there, men are typically transferred to the Inmate Reception Center (IRC), 450 Bauchet St., Los Angeles, CA 90012; women to the Century Regional Detention Facility (CRDF), 11705 S. Alameda St., Lynwood, CA 90262. The LASD Inmate Information Center, (213) 473-6100, is available 24 hours a day to confirm custody status and booking number. Because Commerce has no sworn police department of its own, vehicle-release and impound questions also go through LASD's East Los Angeles Station rather than a city department — ask specifically whether a vehicle was impounded under standard procedure or under Vehicle Code 14602.6, the unlicensed/suspended-driver impound that can hold a car for 30 days regardless of how the criminal case resolves.

A City Built on Industry, Not Residents

Commerce incorporated in 1960 specifically to stop neighboring Vernon and Los Angeles from annexing its industrial tax base, and that industrial identity still defines the city: roughly 12,000 residents share Commerce's 6.6 square miles with a daytime population of warehouses, rail yards, and commercial corridors far larger than the resident count suggests. Two landmarks anchor the city's traffic patterns. The Citadel Outlets occupies the former Samson Tire & Rubber Co. factory, built in 1929 in an Exotic Revival style modeled on the palace of the Assyrian king Sargon II at Khorsabad — the factory closed in 1978, the city bought the site in 1983, and it reopened as an outlet center in 1990. The Commerce Casino, open since 1983 with more than 240 tables, is widely described as the largest cardroom in the world and has historically been one of the city's largest employers and largest single sources of tax revenue. Both draw steady evening and weekend traffic off the I-5 and I-710, which is part of why DUI stops cluster around Washington Blvd and Eastern Ave near these properties as much as on the freeways themselves.

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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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