St. Patrick’s Day is this Saturday, and as one of the biggest party holidays of the year, it’s a day local law enforcement focuses on.

Perry Police Chief Eric Vaughn says over the week his officers will be working overtime shifts to make sure everyone has a safe holiday, and it’s paid for by a government initiative. “A lot of times during St. Patrick’s Day, we have a lot of parties — a lot of festivities at the bars and local restaurants, that type of thing — where there’s typically a lot of drinking that goes on during that day. So there’s also a ‘sTEP Wave,’ a special Traffic Enforcement Program, where we have officers out on the streets. They’re funded by grant money that we get from the Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau, and they’ll be out on the streets helping combat that, and watching for drunk and drugged drivers, as well as like seatbelt violations, texting violations, that type of thing.”

The sTEP Wave will run from the 14th through the 18th. To hear more from Vaughn, listen to Tuesday’s Perry Fareway Let’s Talk Dallas County program at RaccoonValleyRadio.com.