earns the same penalty as driving drunk.

Bert Lambe, of 17 Wreck View Road, Pembroke, learned this Friday when he pleaded guilty to refusing to provide the breath sample and was fined $450 and banned from driving all motor vehicles for a year by Senior Magistrate Will Francis.

But Lambe, 44, denied driving while impaired, saying he drove erratically because he was trying to retrieve a cigarette.

"Do you understand the charge,'' Mr. Francis asked Lambe. "Police had reasonable and probable grounds for thinking that you were driving while impaired or were in charge of a car. And without reasonable excuse, you failed or refused to comply with demands.'' After Lambe questioned his sentence, Mr. Francis said: "The way to prove you weren't drunk is to blow. The officer had a duty to take you over because he could see you swerving.

Mr. Francis had heard Police stopped Lambe at 2.40 a.m. Friday at Crow Lane, Paget after seeing him cross the centre line, swerve and almost collide with a wall on Cavendish Road.

Crown counsel Charmaine Smith said Lambe admitted he had been drinking, and Police noted his breath smelled strongly of alcohol.

Mr. Francis told Lambe he would have to forfeit $500 bail from a previous case, after he noted Lambe had failed to show for an October 12 due care trial on separate charges.

The $500 will have to be paid by December 31 and he will be tried on February 23.

And he will have to pay by the end of the month an unpaid fine of $235 for an unnamed traffic offence from earlier this year.

And when Lambe balked at paying all of his fines, totaling $1,185, Mr. Francis said: "Are you telling me that the only way you can pay this is you sitting up at Westgate? I'll tell you to do some quick thinking!'' Mr. Francis meted out the same punishment to two other men who admitted impaired driving while another man was given a trial date.

Shane Johnathan Clements, of 89 St. David's Road, St. George's, and Stephen T.

Harrold, of 13 St. John's Hill, Pembroke, both apologised for impaired driving.

Mrs. Smith said Police found Clements, 30, and his auxiliary cycle stationary in bushes near the Swizzle Inn, Hamilton Parish at 1.30 a.m. on July 19.

They had begun a pursuit a short distance away and lost him momentarily as they did a U-turn on North Shore Road.

Clements was found to have 168 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood. The legal limit is 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood.

Harrold, 23, was stopped on Reid Street at 2.30 a.m. on July 25 by a Police mobile patrol who had followed him from the Reid Street extension.

He told Police he had "five or six Coronas (beer)'' and was later found to have 195 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood.

Also Friday, Melechar Pavel, of the Southampton Princess, pleaded not guilty to impaired driving on August 5, 1998 in Paget.