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It was just after noon last Saturday and the retired letter carrier had just been at the Streetsville Beer Store to return a month’s worth of empties when a police car flashed him to stop.

“I haven’t been pulled over for 40 or 50 years,” explains Art Lightowler. “I was shaking.”

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A stickler for rules, the 70-year-old knew he hadn’t been speeding. He wasn’t on a cellphone because he doesn’t have one. And he certainly hadn’t been drinking.

So why did the imposing 6-foot-5, 250-pound officer ask him to get out of his car?

“He thought I had dropped off an excessive amount of bottles at The Beer Store,” Lightowler explains.

Over the festive season, he’d accumulated three cases of empty beer bottles and eight wine bottles. “To him that was too much.”

Asked if he’d been drinking, the senior said he’d had a beer at midnight while watching Taken 2. “You need a drink for that movie, ” he quips.

The Peel Regional Police officer insisted he give a breath sample. And if he refused? “I could be fined $2,000 and lose my licence for a year. So I agreed.”