Zachary Particelli was extremely intoxicated when police officers found him passed out behind the wheel of his running car in a west-end parking lot on a summer night last year.
The 24-year-old man's blood-alcohol level was more than four times the legal limit, Ontario Court Justice Romuald Kwolek heard Monday.
He pleaded guilty to operating a vehicle with a blood-alcohol level exceeding 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood.
City police were contacted at 9:15 p.m. on Aug. 14, 2022 about a passed-out male driver in a vehicle in the 600 block of Goulais Avenue.
When officers arrived, they found Particelli falling "in and out of sleep."
There was an empty Smirnoff bottle and another partially full one in the grey Honda Civic, prosecutor Trent Wilson said.
The cops asked Particelli to turn the car off, but he turned the key the wrong way.
He had "trouble getting out of the car," was stumbling and his pupils were dilated.
Two breath tests each recorded readings of 330 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood.
"It was a very dangerous situation," Wilson said, "With these kind of readings I'm surprised he was conscious."
Particelli presented a grave danger to himself and others, he told the court.
The assistant Crown attorney and defence lawyer Anthony Orazietti jointly recommended the minimum $2,000 fine and one-year driving prohibition.
Orazietti said his client is employed at Algoma Steel and has no prior criminal record.
"Consequences flow" from his actions — no licence for 12 months and the fine, he noted.
When he imposed the sentence, Kwolek described Particelli's level of intoxication as extreme.
"It sounds like some heavy drinking in a short period of time," he told the young man after Particelli apologized to the court.
"You were in a parking lot but thought you were fully capable of driving on a road."
Citing the "extreme high levels" of alcohol as an aggravating factor, he admonished "you could have killed yourself."
Kwolek called the guilty plea and lack of a record mitigating.
"I'm told you are a productive member of society."
He gave Particelli 12 months to pay the fine.