On Oregon License Plates, "Wine Country," "Wine," and Hypocrisy

Portland Mercury:

So there's a bill winding its way through the state legislature, SB 442 A, that would create a new specialty license plate in honor of Oregon's wine country. The Oregonian, in a short piece last week on this bill and another license plate proposal, says it has a good chance of passing. If the bill wins approval, anyone who wants the new plates would pay an additional $30, with most of that new revenue going to the Oregon Tourism Commission, aka Travel Oregon. Drivers could prove their fealty to our local wines, and the state would get even more money to lure visitors the region. Even better, the plates would pay for themselves. But the bill—by putting an explicit reference to alcohol on a state license plate—also raises an interesting side issue. Wouldn't creating the new license plate stink—nay, reek—of hypocrisy? Consider: The Department of Motor Vehicles, via a robust administrative policy, actively bans all references to drugs or alcohol on custom license plates—even seemingly harmless ones. The idea is that motor vehicles shouldn't become billboards promoting drunk or impaired driving. The DMV feels so strongly about the ban, in fact, that it went all the way to the Oregon Supreme Court to defend it (no doubt at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars) when someone in the mid-1990s applied for custom plates with the characters "WINE," "INVINO," and "VINO." "The rule is still in place," David House, a DMV spokesman, confirmed when I asked. And yet, the state could soon wind up sanctioning its own license plate with the word "wine" on it. Even though a regular citizen seeking a "WNECNTRY" custom plate, or some other such combination, would be out of luck. [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

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