DULUTH
A 46-year-old Duluth woman was arraigned Tuesday on drunken driving charges after she struck the Smoke Shop at 1405 Miller Trunk Highway while having a blood-alcohol concentration of more than three times the legal limit to drive.
Since that accident, Stephanie Lee Opsahl has again been charged with drunken driving after employees at a Duluth grocery store reported seeing her stumbling around the store before getting into her vehicle. According to police reports, Opsahl allegedly fell asleep behind the wheel in the parking lot and a store employee took her keys from her before police arrived.
An officer attempted to give Opsahl a field sobriety test but she was unable to complete the test without falling down.
The Smoke Shop accident was in June and the grocery store incident was in September.
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A witness told police June 6 that Opsahl drove her vehicle through a red light, jumped the curb and hit the Smoke Shop. It took until November to get the results of Opsahl's blood sample from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is backlogged with cases.
The BCA analysis indicated that Opsahl had Zolpidem, commonly marketed as the sleep aid Ambien, in her system. The drug's sedative effects are magnified by the use of alcohol. The preliminary breath test taken by Opsahl just after the accident had a reading of just over three times the legal limit to drive.
According to police reports, Opsahl denied she had been drinking. She said there had been a man with her but he had left. She said the man kept telling her to creep slowly forward until she hit the building. Witnesses told police Opsahl was the only person in the car.
Opsahl was charged in St. Louis County District Court with driving under the influence and failing to stop for a traffic control device.
Mike Wazwaz, owner of the Smoke Shop, said the accident caused about $5,000 damage to his store. "I was more worried about the woman," Wazwaz said Tuesday. "The poor lady obviously has some problems. I wasn't that upset. I felt more pity for seeing a woman her age being handcuffed."
Opsahl also was charged last month with driving under the influence in connection with the Sept. 3 incident at Super One Foods, 5401 Burning Tree Road. She has hearings scheduled for Dec. 23 and Jan. 13 in the two cases against her.
The Duluth News Tribune and the Herald are Forum Communications Co. newspapers.
