Nesquehoning police have charged a Tamaqua man with driving under the influence and his passenger, a Coaldale woman, with drug offenses.

John Patrick Garrett, 49, also faces charges of accidents involving damage to an unattended vehicle,or property, failing to give information, careless driving, and offenses involving tire equipment and traction surfaces,Carolina Robles, 24, faces charges of unlawful possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.The charges were filed July 31.According to a criminal complaint filed by Police Chief Sean T. Smith, at 8:07 a.m. July 4 a Barney Hunsicker and another man came to the police station to report a man driving a GMC Jimmy on Route 209 at Mermon Avenue with two flat back tires.Smith went there and pulled the car over. He smelled a strong odor of alcohol on the driver's breath, and his eyes were red and glassy. The driver was identified as Garrett. Garrett told Smith he was going to Kovatch's to have the tires fixed. Smith asked Garrett how his tires were damaged, but Garrett did not answer.Garrett told Smith he had two beers a few hours before. Smith asked Garrett to get out of the car, but Garrett had to climb into the back seat to do that because he could not open the driver's side door due to what Smith described as "fresh damage."Garrett was unsteady on his feet, and Smith saw cans of beer, some full and some empty, in the car.Smith asked Garrett who the woman was in the passenger seat. Garrett said he met her at a bar and asked her to go with him to a casino. Garrett told Smith he had a knife, which Smith recovered during a pat-down. Garrett refused field sobriety tests, saying he has a bad back. He also refused to blow into a portable breath test analyzer or submit to a blood test. Smith called for backup, and patrolman Richard Reese of the Lansford police department arrived.Smith asked the front seat passenger for identification. She said she didn't have any, but gave her name and other information.\ She said she met Garrett at a Tamaqua bar the previous night and agreed to go to a casino with him, and that they were headed to his house.Smith told her the car had to be towed, and asked her to get out of it. She did, but left her purse behind. She agreed to allow Smith to search it, and he found a glass pipe with burned resin appearing to be from marijuana.Robles said she had been homeless and was given the bag by another person and had no idea the pipe was in there. Then she changed her story and said someone must have slipped it into her purse while it was on the floor at the casino. Smith seized the pipe and returned the purse to Robles.Garrett again refused field sobriety tests, and signed a form to that effect. He said the car had been damaged when he lost control of it while driving south on Route 93 and hit the guard rails.Smith told him he was free to leave, and photographed the damage to the guard rails, near the entrance to carbon county correctional facility in Nesquehoning.