PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine is cleansing up its roadways by eradicating the flippin’ vulgarities from license plates.
The state is imposing new guidelines to eradicate f-bombs and different obscenities that appeared on vainness license plates after the state successfully eradicated its overview course of.
The state started issuing recall letters this month, with a handful every day. It’ll take a few months to finish the method.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows is keen about free speech as a former director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine. However she mentioned obscenities shouldn’t be on license plates, that are state property.
“What I’d say to those that need to have interaction in objectionable or questionable speech: Get a bumper sticker,” she mentioned.
It’s a little bit of a headscratcher how a bunch of descendants of Puritans in a New England state ended up placing among the raunchiest messages on state-issued license plates.
It began when state lawmakers all-but-eliminated the overview in 2015 after a lawsuit efficiently focused neighboring New Hampshire’s restrictions on vainness license plates.
Maine’s laissez-faire strategy allowed what Bellows described as a “wild wild West” during which motorists ordered vainness license plates with blushing references to intercourse acts or genitalia. One infamous license plate used a profanity that begins with the letter F, adopted by the phrase “you.”
Final 12 months, the Maine Legislature directed the Bureau of Motor Autos to reestablish guidelines for vetting license plates.
Maine’s new guidelines, which Bellows mentioned observe carefully with New Hampshire’s revised requirements, ban derogatory references to age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identification, nationwide origin, faith or incapacity. Additionally banned is language that incites violence, or is taken into account profane or obscene.
A committee has been set as much as overview vainness plate requests, together with complaints by members of the general public.
In Maine, there are about 124,000 vainness license plates on the roads in a state with about 1.3 million residents. Earlier estimates advised 400 offensive plates could possibly be topic to recall, and practically 40 recall letters had been issued as of midweek, officers mentioned.
Observe David Sharp on Twitter: @David_Sharp_AP