DUI Attorney in La Habra Heights

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 La Habra Heights

La Habra Heights has never run its own police department. Since its incorporation on December 4, 1978, the city has contracted for law enforcement with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, patrolled out of the Industry Station, 150 N. Hudson Avenue, City of Industry, CA 91744, (626) 330-3322 — available 24 hours a day. Industry Station's coverage area is large and spread across several unincorporated and incorporated communities: besides La Habra Heights, it also answers for the City of Industry, La Puente, Hacienda Heights, Valinda, and the Bassett/North Whittier area. La Habra Heights has no sheriff's sub-station of its own inside city limits.

Geography shapes enforcement here more than in most Gateway-area cities. At 6.16 square miles of hillside laid out almost entirely in one-acre ranch lots — with no sidewalks and an active equestrian culture built around the Highland Riders club — La Habra Heights has no freeway or state highway running through it; traffic moves on interior roads like Hacienda Road, Skyline Drive, Fullerton Road, and East Road. CHP's Santa Fe Springs Area office, 10051 Orr and Day Road, Santa Fe Springs — which names La Habra Heights directly among the cities in its own patrol area — is the agency most likely to respond to a DUI stop on the arterial roads at the city's edges, including the Harbor Boulevard and Whittier Boulevard approaches toward La Habra and Whittier, while Industry Station deputies handle stops on the interior residential streets.

• La Habra Heights incorporated on December 4, 1978 and still runs its own municipal fire department — a Combination Fire Department based behind City Hall on Hacienda Road — even though it contracts out police services to the Sheriff's Department; the two public-safety functions are handled by two completely different arrangements.
• The city has no schools inside its own borders. Residents are zoned to the Lowell Joint, La Habra City, and Fullerton Joint Union High school districts (with a few homes zoned toward Whittier-area schools instead), and most high-school-age kids attend La Habra High School or Sonora High School just across the county line.

Where a La Habra Heights DUI case is heard

This is the one fact on this page we can't hand you with full confidence, and we'd rather tell you that plainly than guess. La Habra Heights' DUI cases were historically tied to the Whittier Courthouse, 7339 S. Painter Avenue, which no longer hears criminal matters. Secondary reporting on that courthouse's 2013 reorganization says its criminal docket was reassigned to either the Downey Courthouse or the Bellflower Courthouse, depending on where the arrest actually happened — but unlike a couple of neighboring small cities where a specific source points to one particular courthouse, nothing we found names La Habra Heights to either building specifically. We are not going to default to one of the two just to give you a clean answer; we'd be guessing, and a wrong guess could send you to the wrong clerk's window on a deadline day.

In practice, that means an arrest closer to the city's eastern/southern edge (toward Whittier and the Norwalk-facing side) tends to route differently than one closer to the La Habra/Fullerton side — but the safest move is to check your own citation or booking paperwork, which will state the assigned courthouse directly, or to call the court clerk before assuming either direction. Ron Chini represents clients at both buildings and can confirm which one has your case within a short phone call.

Booking and getting a car back after a La Habra Heights arrest

A DUI arrest in La Habra Heights is booked first through Industry Station, 150 N. Hudson Avenue — that stop is only the intake step. From there, the county's custody system generally transfers men downtown to the Inmate Reception Center, Men's Central Jail, or Twin Towers, and women to the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood. Whether someone is released on their own recognizance, posts bail, or qualifies for a cite-and-release depends on the specifics of the stop. If a family member was arrested here and you can't find them, call our office and we'll help you track down the right facility.

Your vehicle is handled separately from your custody status. An ordinary post-arrest tow usually just means picking the car up from the tow yard once release paperwork, the towing fee, and the storage fee are squared away. A 30-day mandatory impound under Vehicle Code §14602.6 is a different and more serious situation — it only applies when the driver was also unlicensed, suspended, revoked, or driving on a restricted license without the required interlock device, not for a DUI arrest on its own. We'll check which category applies to your stop during your free consultation.

Hass avocados, equestrian hills, and no city of its own commerce

La Habra Heights' land traces back to the 1839 Rancho La Habra Mexican land grant to Mariano Reyes Roldan, which later passed through owners including Andrés Pico and Abel Stearns before Willits J. Hole bought roughly 3,500 acres in 1900 and Edwin G. Hart acquired and began developing the hillside community in 1919. The city didn't incorporate until December 4, 1978, by which point its identity as a rural, low-density hillside enclave was already set: nearly all of its 6.16 square miles is zoned in one-acre lots, there are no sidewalks, and horse ownership remains common enough to support an organized riding club, the Highland Riders, along with a horse arena and practice corral at Hacienda Park. The city has almost no commercial district of its own by design.

The community's best-known claim to fame predates the city government itself: Rudolph Hass, the mail carrier who patented the Hass avocado in 1935, kept his original grove here, and a marker at 426 West Road still identifies the site of the now-removed "mother tree" that every Hass avocado in the world descends from. La Habra Heights revived that history with an annual Avocado Festival (held 2010–2013, then again from 2018), and the community's notable residents include former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, Olympic gymnast and actress Cathy Rigby, and MLB pitcher Josh Staumont. As of the 2020 Census, the city's roughly 5,682 residents were 42.6% non-Hispanic white, 31.9% Hispanic or Latino, and 20.2% Asian, with an estimated 2023 median household income near $186,800 — among the higher figures in the county, consistent with its large-lot, low-density character.

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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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