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Chino Hills isn't Chino — and that difference matters for your case
Chino Hills is a separate, more recently built city from its neighbor Chino, and the two should not be confused. Chino was incorporated in 1910 and grew up around cattle ranching and dairy operations; Chino Hills incorporated 81 years later, on December 1, 1991, as a master-planned hillside suburb of village-style neighborhoods built around shopping centers and parks designed to be within walking distance of nearby homes. The city grew from about 42,000 residents at incorporation to 78,411 by the 2020 census, and it is now a genuinely affluent community — the 2023 median household income was $122,600, with only 6.9% of residents below the poverty line. Its western and southern edges border undeveloped hills and Orange County, reachable only by Carbon Canyon Road (SR-142), the single direct road link between the two counties.
Two Chino Hills facts stand out for anyone searching for the city. First, Chino Hills State Park, a roughly 14,100-acre wilderness park of rolling hills and oak woodland that borders the city and gives it its name and much of its rural-feeling edge despite the dense suburban tracts closer to the freeway. Second, the city was the epicenter of the 2008 Chino Hills earthquake — a magnitude 5.4 quake on July 29, 2008, centered just south of the city at a depth of roughly 9.6 miles, felt as far away as Las Vegas and San Diego and widely covered as one of Southern California's more notable recent seismic events. Neither fact has anything to do with a DUI charge, but they're part of why this page is written for Chino Hills specifically rather than recycled from the city of Chino next door.
How DUIs are policed in Chino Hills
Unlike the city of Chino, which has run its own municipal police department since 1913, Chino Hills has never had its own force. Since incorporating in 1991, the city has contracted with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department for all law enforcement services, including patrol, investigations, and DUI enforcement. The contract station — Chino Hills Station, a 30,000-square-foot building at 14077 Peyton Drive, next to City Hall — currently has about 60 sworn deputies assigned to the city, out of 75 total personnel at the station (68 paid by the city, 7 by the county). The 2025–26 contract runs the city roughly $18.4 million a year, offset by credits for deputies who also cover unincorporated pockets of Chino and Montclair.
California's Office of Traffic Safety tracks DUI enforcement city by city, and Chino Hills' numbers are notable: in its 2023 rankings, Chino Hills — grouped with similarly sized cities (Group C, average population 77,452) — reported 31 DUI arrests, ranking 6th out of 103 comparable cities for arrest activity, while ranking 95th out of 103 for alcohol-involved-collision victims (12 killed or injured). That combination — a high arrest rank with a comparatively low injury-collision rank — points to an active, proactive DUI enforcement posture by the contract Sheriff's deputies rather than a city reacting to a worse-than-average crash problem.
- Chino Hills Station deputies (San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department) patrol all of Chino Hills under the city's law-enforcement services contract — there is no separate Chino Hills city police force.
- The California Highway Patrol's Rancho Cucamonga Area office patrols the freeways and unincorporated roads around Chino Hills, including the SR-71 (Chino Valley Freeway) corridor that roughly traces the city's eastern border.
- Further north, SR-71 is in the middle of a multi-year Caltrans widening project converting it from a 4-lane expressway to an 8-lane freeway between I-10 and the Los Angeles/San Bernardino county line near Pomona — ongoing construction and added traffic volume on that stretch of the same highway can factor into enforcement patterns down through the Chino Hills segment as well.
- Carbon Canyon Road (SR-142), the only direct route between Chino Hills and Orange County, is a two-lane canyon road that both CHP and Chino Hills Station deputies watch closely for impaired and unsafe driving.
Where a Chino Hills DUI case is heard
A DUI arrest in Chino Hills — by a Sheriff's deputy from Chino Hills Station or by the CHP on SR-71 or Carbon Canyon Road — is filed at the Rancho Cucamonga District of the San Bernardino County Superior Court, informally called the West Valley court. The court's own "Where Can I File?" page lists the Rancho Cucamonga District's felony and misdemeanor "Areas Served" by name, and that verbatim list names Chino and Chino Hills directly, alongside Alta Loma, Etiwanda, Montclair, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Upland, Fontana, and Rialto. The San Bernardino County District Attorney — not the City of Chino Hills — decides what to charge and prosecutes the case.
Someone arrested for DUI by a Chino Hills Station deputy is typically transported into the county jail system at West Valley Detention Center, 9500 Etiwanda Avenue in Rancho Cucamonga — one of the largest county jails in California and the booking point the Sheriff's Department uses for arrests across the west end of San Bernardino County, including its own contract cities. If the vehicle was impounded rather than released at the scene, ask the deputy or the tow yard directly which hold applies: a standard tow is releasable any time, while a 30-day administrative impound under Vehicle Code §14602.6 is generally held for the full period regardless of paperwork, subject to a right to request a post-storage hearing.
Rancho Cucamonga District — court & booking details
Getting around Chino Hills during a license suspension
Chino Hills has no rail station of its own, and the city's hillside, village-style layout — built for cars, not transit — makes a license suspension a genuine hardship for most residents. Omnitrans serves parts of the city with local bus routes, and the nearest Metrolink connections are in neighboring Pomona and Corona, both a drive away. The 10-day deadline to request a DMV Driver Safety hearing after a DUI arrest is the single most important date on the calendar: miss it, and your license suspends automatically, with no hearing at all. Once the DMV grants a restricted license, the Rancho Cucamonga DMV field office, 8629 Hellman Avenue, is the closest place to handle the paperwork; the Driver Safety hearing itself is scheduled by phone through the DMV's Driver Safety Office, not at a walk-in field office. Read more about what a suspension does and does not allow on our license suspension page.
Where will my Chino Hills DUI case be heard?
Does Chino Hills have its own police department?
Who patrols the freeways and canyon roads around Chino Hills?
Where was I booked after a Chino Hills DUI arrest?
How strict is DUI enforcement in Chino Hills?
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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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