Twin Cities "Pizza Man" serves up complimentary sober rides for New Year's Eve revelers
COLUMBIA HEIGHTS, Minn. — A Columbia Heights business owner is helping people get to and from their New Year's Eve celebrations safely, by offering free rides.
"Hopefully tonight's a good, safe night, we stay busy, able to get people home when they need to get home," Chris Kolstad said.
Since taking over Heights Pizza Man four years ago, Kolstad has offered sober rides to people on major holidays.
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"Usually by the time they get in our car they're about ready for a nap. But every once in a while it turns into karaoke on the freeway, your typical drunk ride," Kolstad said. "I'd rather someone doing that than go out and risk somebody's life."
The decision to help prevent impaired driving is personal for Kolstad and his employees.
"We've got a couple staff members here that have lost close family members to drunk drivers. I've lost a few people through my life. Nobody substantially close to me, but people I knew anyway, and seen a lot of people impacted by it in this community as well," he said.
The Minnesota State Patrol says 444 drivers died on state roads last year. In at least 25% of the deaths, the driver had been using substances.
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"We want people to know that we're going to be out there making traffic stops because everyone deserves to get to and from their places safely," said Lt. Jill Frankfurth with the state patrol. "And if we need to stop drivers before they injure or, worse, kill somebody else on the road, we'll be out doing that."
Metro Transit is also offering free rides on Sunday night until end of service on all routes.
