- And they’re willing to fight for it.
The state is cracking down against personalized, and what they are calling, vulgar, license plates. For years, Maine allowed people to add almost whatever they wanted to their license plates, but they decided to change course and include words and phrases they deemed inappropriate.
This year the state recalled 274 plates.
A vegan of Maine with the license plate referring to “tofu” is among those caught in the state crackdown due to “vulgar license plates.” And people are wanting to fight back.
However, so far, the state has rejected all of the appeals. It has even rejected the vegan license that referred to “tofu.”
The license plate itself reads “LUVTOFU” but according to the state, it could be seen as a reference to sex instead of a love for bean curd. Of course, the driver says there’s no mistaking his intent as the back of his car has several tofu stickers as well.
“It’s my protest against eating meat and animal products,” Peter Starostecki, the disappointed motorist said. He had just finished a zoom session with a hearing examiner for the Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
Best friends gave up their matching license plates for containing the word for a female dog. “People are so sensitive nowadays,” said Heather Libby, of Jonesport, post rejected appeal. “I just think it’s foolish.”
When the state ended the review process for vanity plates back in , some ordered their license plates with all kinds of profanity including F-bombs, in one way or another.
“The First Amendment protects your right to have any bumper sticker you want, but it doesn’t force the state to issue you a registration plate that subjects every child in your neighborhood to a message the government wouldn’t allow them to see in a movie theater,” she told the Legislature’s Transportation Committee.
Bellows, a former director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, testified Tuesday. She’s in support of several bills to rein in the wild west that ensued when the state ended the vetting process for license plates in 2015.
For the rest of the story, visit the link Maine Drivers Want the Right to Any License Plates They Want: Part Two.
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