Emphasis added by me.

Ga. Daycare Owner Charged With DUI

By DORIE TURNER

Wed Oct 11, 11:24 PM


ATLANTA - A daycare center owner was charged with driving drunk while at the wheel of a van with about a dozen children aboard, authorities said.

Kathy Johnson was arrested Tuesday after she drove into the parking lot of the Starting Block Learning Center, said Carroll County chief sheriff's Deputy Brad Robinson.

Deputies were outside Johnson's daycare center investigating an unrelated domestic incident when she arrived. She approached the deputies "in a totally agitated manner," and they smelled alcohol on her breath, Robinson said.

Johnson's blood alcohol level was .15, nearly double the legal threshold for a DUI, he said.

It is Johnson's fourth arrest on DUI charges, Carrollton police Capt. Daryl Diamond said. She was convicted of drunken driving in 1992 and 1993, and a 2005 DUI charge is still pending, he said.

If Johnson is convicted _ and depending on the results of a state probe _ she and her business could face state sanctions ranging from a simple fine to the revocation of the center's license, said Todd Blandin, spokesman for the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning.

Two complaints against the center have been filed with the state over the last year, according to the department's Web site. The complaints describe employees taking children off the premises without parental permission and letting older children go to the store unescorted.

A man who answered the phone at the center Wednesday said he had no comment. He declined to provide anyone else who could comment and hung up the phone.

Carrollton is about 42 miles west of Atlanta.



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