Saratoga County deputies patrolling lakes for Memorial Day weekend

It’s perfect weather for this Memorial Day weekend; sunny, blue skies and no rain. Of course, that means more boats out on the water.

NewsChannel 13 went out on patrol with Deputies Kyle Basta and Jared Gardner with the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office.

“One of the biggest violations we see is the no wake zone being violated. There are a lot of people that come in here. It’s posted well over the place. It’s five miles an hour/no wake,” Basta said.

The unofficial start to summer draws a big crowd at Sandy Bay on Saratoga Lake. People can sometimes unfortunately take it overboard.

“They’re launching the boats at 11:00, and they’ll be here until sunset – which also comes with people consuming alcoholic beverages while out on the boat all day. We try to keep an eye out for that,” Basta said.

So far, they’ve only issued one BWI (boating while intoxicated) for the holiday weekend, Gardner said. This means many people are being responsible for Saratoga Lake.

“We try to catch the reckless people, and if we have to go further with a citation or an investigation into BWI, then we’ll do so, but we try to prevent that by showing such a strong force out here,” Gardner said.

Both deputies said they are not out patrolling to ruin somebody’s fun day. However, they will enforce the law when they need to.

“We will stop for just about any safety violation that we see, and if you’re impaired, we’re going to enforce it,” Gardner said.

Deputies will be patrolling the water for the rest of spring and into the summer.