Maine Begins Casting off The ones Naughty License Plates

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine is cleansing up its roadways via doing away with the flippin’ vulgarities from license plates.

The state is imposing new laws to get rid of f-bombs and different obscenities that seemed on self-importance license plates after the state successfully removed its assessment procedure.

The state started issuing recall letters this month, with a handful on a daily basis. It’ll take a few months to finish the method.

Secretary of State Shenna Bellows is enthusiastic about loose speech as a former director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine. However she mentioned obscenities must now not be on license plates, that are state assets.

“What I might say to those that need to interact in objectionable or questionable speech: Get a bumper sticky label,” she mentioned.

It’s a bit of of a headscratcher how a host of descendants of Puritans in a New England state ended up hanging probably the most raunchiest messages on state-issued license plates.

It began when state lawmakers all-but-eliminated the assessment in 2015 after a lawsuit effectively centered neighboring New Hampshire’s restrictions on self-importance license plates.

Maine’s laissez-faire method allowed what Bellows described as a “wild wild West” through which motorists ordered self-importance license plates with blushing references to intercourse acts or genitalia. One infamous registration number plate used a profanity that begins with the letter F, adopted via the phrase “you.”

Final 12 months, the Maine Legislature directed the Bureau of Motor Cars to reestablish laws for vetting license plates.

Maine’s new laws, which Bellows mentioned monitor intently with New Hampshire’s revised requirements, ban derogatory references to age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identification, nationwide foundation, faith or incapacity. Additionally banned is language that incites violence, or is regarded as profane or obscene.

A committee has been set as much as assessment self-importance plate requests, at the side of court cases via participants of the general public.

In Maine, there are about 124,000 self-importance license plates at the roads in a state with about 1.3 million citizens. Earlier estimates advised 400 offensive plates may well be matter to recall, and just about 40 recall letters have been issued as of midweek, officers mentioned.

Observe David Sharp on Twitter: @David_Sharp_AP