Former OBA candidate Gaylynne Cannonier was yesterday fined, but not disqualified, after she admitted driving while impaired.Magistrates’ Court heard that at around 2.05am on April 27, officers were travelling in an unmarked police car on Front Street when they noticed the car in front of them, driven by the 48-year-old, swerving around the road for no apparent reason.At the junction with Court Street, the car passed into the wrong lane, nearly causing a collision with a passing vehicle.Officers stopped the car and spoke to Cannonier. They noticed that her breath smelled of alcohol, her eyes were glazed and her words were slurred. When she stepped out of the vehicle, she appeared to be unsteady on her feet.Asked if she had been drinking, she told the officers: “I had two or three glasses of wine.”She was subsequently arrested on suspicion of driving while impaired.Cannonier was taken to Hamilton Police Station where she agreed to provide a sample of breath, but the court heard the samples were “inadequate”.Her lawyer, Saul Dismont, said Cannonier was sorry for the incident and asked if she could maintain her licence due to her personal circumstances.He explained that along with being a member of several Government boards, she is due to start work with the Regis Hotel project. That position, he said, requires her to use her car throughout the day and during the night on short notice.“If she has to say she has to rely on a bus or a taxi it could very well end her employment,” Mr Dismont said.Mr Dismont also stressed that Cannonier admitted the offence at the first possible opportunity and has never been convicted of any offence previously.Drunk driving charges have typically carried a mandatory period of disqualification, but amendments passed last October intended to extend the ban left out the word “obligatory”, leaving it to the Magistrates’ discretion as to whether to institute a ban.Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner said: “In these circumstances of employment where the possibility of employment is jeopardised, I have been exercising my discretion in favour of the defendants.“I see no reason not to do it in this case because I find it would be proportionate to do so.”Mr Warner fined Cannonier $1,500 and issued seven demerit points.Cannonier, the sister of Premier Craig Cannonier, challenged the PLP’s Lovitta Foggo in last December’s general election in St David’s, but lost by 127 votes.The One Bermuda Alliance were contacted yesterday in connection to this story, but declined to comment.The Attorney General’s office meanwhile said that amendments to reinstitute the mandatory road ban for drink driving offences will be tabled “in the near future”.