DUI Attorney in Stanton

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 Stanton

Stanton has never run its own police department in its current era as a city. Since February 1988, when the city's former police department merged into the county system, Stanton has contracted with the Orange County Sheriff's Department for patrol. Stanton Police Services falls under OCSD's North Operations division, which also provides contract policing to Yorba Linda and Villa Park. OCSD currently lists Stanton's staffing as five sergeants, twenty patrol deputies, and one motor unit, with a captain serving as chief of police services for the city. The arrangement runs on a five-year base contract with the county, re-priced by a yearly amendment — the amendment covering July 2026 through June 2027 lists an estimated cost of up to $16,029,920 for that single year.

• No freeway physically runs through Stanton's 3.10 square miles. Beach Boulevard (State Route 39) is the city's through-corridor, feeding into the Garden Grove Freeway (SR-22) just outside city limits.
• CHP's Westminster Area office, 13200 Goldenwest Street, Westminster, lists Interstate 5, Interstate 405, State Route 22, and State Route 91 as its patrol responsibility — all freeway segments outside Stanton rather than inside it. A DUI stop on Beach Boulevard itself, within Stanton's own city limits, is ordinarily made by an OCSD patrol deputy assigned to the city rather than a CHP officer, since CHP's stated coverage here is the surrounding freeways, not Stanton's surface streets.

Where a Stanton DUI case is heard

A DUI arrest anywhere in Stanton — on Beach Boulevard, Katella Avenue, or elsewhere in the city — is filed at the West Justice Center (Stephen K. Tamura), 8141 13th Street, Westminster, CA 92683. The Orange County Superior Court's own location listing for that building names Stanton among the cities it serves, alongside Westminster, Huntington Beach, Garden Grove, Fountain Valley, Costa Mesa, Cypress, Los Alamitos, and Seal Beach.

The Orange County District Attorney's Office prosecutes the case, not a city attorney — Stanton is too small to run its own prosecutorial office. The West Justice Center's criminal division is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., with criminal appearances generally scheduled for 8:30 a.m.

A city that incorporated twice — 1911, 1924, and 1956

Stanton's history as a city is unusually stop-and-start. The area first incorporated in May 1911 with the help of Philip Stanton, a Los Angeles-area assemblyman and former Speaker of the California State Assembly, after local ranchers organized against Anaheim's plan to build an open-air sewage spreading ground in the territory. Incorporating was the ranchers' defense against becoming someone else's sewage farm.

That first city didn't last. On August 8, 1924, the city clerk filed papers with the California Secretary of State dis-incorporating Stanton — sources differ on exactly why. The city's own history page says voters wanted the state, rather than the city, to pay for road construction in the area; a county Board of Supervisors retrospective instead credits the decision to the original sewage-farm threat having simply passed, leaving little reason to keep a city government running. Either way, Stanton spent the next three decades as unincorporated county territory.

Growth reversed that. By the mid-1950s, tract housing was spreading across the area, and residents worried that without a city government of their own, Stanton would simply be annexed piece by piece into its incorporating neighbors. Voters approved incorporation again on May 15, 1956, and the City of Stanton was officially re-incorporated as a general law city on June 4, 1956 — the date the city now marks as its founding.

3.10 square miles, two theme-park neighbors, and Adventure City

At the 2020 Census, Stanton had 37,962 residents packed into just 3.10 square miles — roughly 12,200 people per square mile, among the highest densities of any city in Orange County. There's very little room left to build: Stanton is almost entirely built out, bordered by Anaheim, Garden Grove, Cypress, and Buena Park, with no unincorporated land of its own left to annex.

The city's best-known landmark sits right on its border. Adventure City, a small family amusement park built in 1994 as an expansion of the neighboring Hobby City novelty-shop complex, covers only about two acres — but even that modest footprint straddles a city line: the rides themselves are physically in Stanton, while the parking lot and main entrance are across the line in Anaheim. The park has stayed family-owned and operated for three decades under general manager Allan Ansdell Jr., and its newest major ride, Rewind Racers, opened in June 2015 as the largest single investment in the park's history at that point.

Booking and your car after a Stanton DUI arrest

Stanton has no jail of its own — consistent with the booking pattern used by other Orange County cities that contract with OCSD for policing, an arrestee is processed into county custody at the Orange County Sheriff's Intake Release Center, 550 N. Flower St., Santa Ana, whose bail cashier window operates 24 hours a day, with a possible later transfer to the Theo Lacy Facility in the City of Orange depending on how the case is classified.

Your vehicle is a separate issue from the arrest. A routine DUI tow under Vehicle Code §22651(h) generally lets you, or someone you authorize, retrieve the car from the tow yard once the release paperwork, towing fee, and storage fee are handled. A mandatory 30-day impound under Vehicle Code §14602.6 is different and more serious — it applies only when the driver was also unlicensed, or driving on a suspended, revoked, or restricted license without a required interlock device, not to a DUI arrest by itself. Ask us which situation applies to your stop during your free consultation.

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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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