BC Highway Patrol handed out hundreds of tickets and busted drivers on drugs at the recent Shambhala Music Festival in the Kootenays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Officers issued more than 800 tickets, towed 60 vehicles, handed out 59 one-day driving suspensions to drug-impaired drivers and launched 24 criminal investigations for drug-impairment during the festival in Salmo from July 21 to 25, according to an RCMP media release issued today, Aug. 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BC Highway Patrol officers were out in force cracking down on drivers on all the mountain passes into Salmo including the Kootenay Pass, Bombi Pass and Paulson Pass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Police also issued 360 speeding tickets, nine excessive speeding tickets, 11 tickets for no insurance and 11 notices for unsafe vehicles. Excessive speeding is going more than 40 km\/h over the posted speed limit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe temperatures were high and a little uncomfortable for officers working long days in full uniform, but it\u2019s clear this enforcement was necessary,” BC Highway Patrol media relations officer Cpl. Michael McLaughlin said in the release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Police officers were particularly concerned about getting impaired drivers and unsafe vehicles off the road, and they were right to be concerned.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“It\u2019s clear this enforcement was necessary.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":547,"featured_media":4786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"guid":"","source":"","byline":"","published":"","updated":"","_infotelid":"","_prepressid":"","_multisite_post_sync":null,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1285,492,493],"tags":[],"region":[206,207,208,209],"class_list":["post-4785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-local","category-topnews","region-kamloops","region-kelowna","region-penticton","region-vernon"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"post_modified":"2025-08-05T12:21:29","post_modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T19:21:29","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/inwheels-hd-mediaitemid110099-3840.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/547"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4785"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=4785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}