The first impaired driving sentencing under new legislation took place in Swift Current Provincial Court yesterday, and it sends a clear message about drunk driving.

New legislation came into effect on December 18, which brought about a few changes. Police can demand a mandatory breath sample of a driver without having grounds to believe they've been drinking. It is illegal to have a blood alcohol level of .08 within two hours of driving, unless the alcohol that put the recent driver over the limit was consumed after driving and they don't have a reasonable expectation after driving that they'd be required to provide a sample.

Another change to the legislation regards the sentencing, and that was witnessed in court yesterday morning.

A man born in 1992 was arrested December 19 - one day after the changes to the Criminal Code came into effect - around 10:30 p.m. driving on Highway 1 between Tompkins and Webb, weaving in a Ford F-350 pickup.

He blew a .210 into an approved screening device on reasonable suspicion he was drinking (not the new mandatory-breath-sample part). The Criminal Code limit is .08, though it's a provincial offence in Saskatchewan to drive above .04.

The man was given a one-year driving prohibition, a $4,000 fine, a year of probation where he has to abstain from alcohol for a year, get addiction treatment, and submit to breath tests during the year of probation. He'll also have to pay SGI fines likely between $5,000 and $10,000 to get driving again, and he lost his job where he was making between $60,000-$80,000 a year.

At the sentencing, Judge Karl Bazin said the community has had it with impaired driving.