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PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: ANGELA OWENS/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
What the BLEEP? Maine Is Cracking Down on Obscene License Plates.
End of vanity-plate free-for-all likely to cause recall of hundreds of vulgar tags, but not in time for summer vacations
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has some advice for the families pouring into her state this summer for a quintessential New England family vacation: “Parental advisory required. Don’t play the license-plate game in Maine.”
Hundreds of cars in the state that calls itself “Vacationland” have government-issued vanity plates that some state officials consider obscene or grossly offensive. About two dozen spell out the F-word, and others easily get the point across without all four letters, a Wall Street Journal analysis of the roughly 115,000 vanity plates found. More than a few are blatantly sexual.
The free-for-all is supposed to end later this year when the state’s new Vanity Plate Review Committee revs up. Its three members—two Bureau of Motor Vehicles staffers and the vehicle services director—will carry out a 2021 state law meant to rein in the rudeness that has made Maine a Wild West of vanity plates.
The law bans derogatory references to, among other things, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion. Also out: plates that connote genitalia, relate to sexual acts or meet the state’s definition of profane or obscene. Plates already on the road that are found to be in violation will be recalled.
For help with arcane lingo, the committee will consult the Urban Dictionary, an online slang compendium. Members might also want to keep handy foreign-language dictionaries and a mirror, as the law covers “mirror images of a word or term otherwise prohibited…even if expressed in a language other than English.” (Several current Maine plates, when seen in a rearview mirror, describes sexual acts.)
For now, says Ms. Bellows, “We have lobster, blueberry pie—and still a few obscene license plates on the road.”
Like nearly all other states, Maine allows residents to get personalized plates—provided the desired letters and numbers aren’t already taken. It costs an extra $25 a year.
Shania Roussel knows she might soon have to give up the plate she got in 2020. It features the F-word plus “AHH”—think “-ER” in a Maine accent. Ms. Roussel, 25 years old, said the seven letters on her Toyota Corolla aren’t a slur but a spicy homage to the Pine Tree State.
Shania Roussel’s plate has made for some awkward moments.
PHOTO: IVY JOHNS
“It was like, how can I incorporate my frequent swearing with my love for my state?” she recalls thinking when she selected her plate.
Most people, including out-of-state visitors, seem amused, she says, except for the guy who berated her outside a Dunkin’. But the plate can make for awkward moments, like the time her then-boss asked her to drive her Toyota Corolla to visit a client, rather than take a company car.
“I explained it to him, and he immediately was like, ‘Oh, yeah, no, absolutely not,’ ” she recalls.
For George Fogg, 89, the state can’t slam on the brakes fast enough on vulgar vanities. He was one of more than a dozen Mainers who cheered the new law in emails sent to the secretary of state’s office. “If it can’t be said in front of your mother, I think it’s wrong,” he says.
Residents honked off by new restrictions also sent emails. “I don’t buy vanity plates and actually think they are stupid and - well vain. But I DO NOT AGREE with trampling the 1st amendment because a few people are hurt by it,” wrote
Until 2015, Maine was part of the clean-plate club to which most states belong. The secretary of state could reject “obscene, contemptuous, profane or prejudicial” vanity plates, or those promoting “abusive or unlawful activity.” The law was changed, in part because of worries it would be found unconstitutional, as happened in some other states.
Matt
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