Senate Transportation Committee advances bill to expand ignition-interlock rules after St. Louis Park crash

Senator Lats, sponsor of Senate File 2068, told the Minnesota Senate Transportation Committee on March 28, 2025, that the bill was drafted after “a tragedy that happened in Saint Louis Park” in which a repeat DWI offender drove into an outdoor patio at the Park Tavern, killing two people and injuring nine.

The bill would lengthen ignition-interlock durations on a graduated scale for repeat DWI offenders, extend the look-back period for prior offenses from 10 to 20 years, allow the statutory reinstatement fee to be paid over the course of the interlock requirement rather than all up front in some cases, and add ignition-interlock as an option in criminal vehicular homicide cases. The committee passed an A7 amendment addressing statutory clarifications and vehicle-forfeiture issues and then voted to recommend the bill, as amended, be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety.

Senator Lats said the bill "started out as a specific response to a tragedy that happened in Saint Louis Park" where the driver had five prior DWI convictions, the most recent in 2015, and had regained driving privileges without an interlock requirement before the fatal incident. Under the bill’s proposals, interlock duration would…