DMV says no to BREWBUS

NORTH HAMPTON - Seven months after the state Supreme Court ruled that the license plate COPSLIE is protected free speech, David Adams is frustrated about having been denied license plates to say BREWBUS, GROWLER, or NHBEER.

Owner of Granite State Growler Tours, Adams already has the vanity plate BEERBUS on a 14-passenger bus he uses to drive customers to craft breweries between Newburyport, Mass., and York, Maine, with stops in Portsmouth. He said his customers are craft beer lovers who taste samples at small-batch breweries, while talking with local brewers.

But the BEERBUS license plates will likely be revoked when he goes to renew them in a couple of months, Adams said he's been warned. He said he bought a second bus for his growing business and when he went to the Department of Motor Vehicles and failed to get the BREWBUS, GROWLER or NHBEER plates for it, he was also told his BEERBUS plate isn't grandfathered and may be yanked at renewal time. 

The reason cited is that BEERBUS, BREWBUS, GROWLER and NHBEER all make references to "intoxicants," Adams said. 

Since the state Supreme Court ruled in May that denial of the COPSLIE license plate should be reversed, the DMV issued a temporary set of rules banning references to any of the following on New Hampshire license plates: Intimate body parts or genitals, sexual or excretory acts or functions, words or terms of profanity or obscenity, violence, illegal activities, intoxicants, drugs or drug culture, gangs, or racial, ethnic, religious, gender or sexual orientation hatred or bigotry.

The DMV rules say the references are banned from state license plates whether they are read forward, backward, by mirror image or phonetic spelling.

Adams said he expects "a pretty huge backlash" if the state decides to revoke already-issued beer-related license plates on trucks owned by breweries and distributors. 

"There's a lot of interpretation here," he said. "It's turned into a mess."

Adams said the restriction on references to intoxicants is "particularly bothersome to me for a couple of reasons."

"One is that the designation of intoxicants and drugs is vague," he said. "The second being that beer is a legal substance. Would ‘aspirin’ be denied, or ‘paint’?  Since I was denied GROWLER for my bus but GRWLR was approved for my motorcycle, is it contextual or absolute?  Is CIDER acceptable?"

Adams said he wrote to the DMV about his vanity plate denials, while reminding that his business is licensed by the state and, yes, does involve intoxicants. He also wrote that so "do all of the distillers, brewers and bars in the state, all of which have licenses approved by the state and business names also approved by the state."

"We are not endorsing illegal drugs or illegal activities," Adams wrote. "I would simply like to promote my business on my company vehicle, which is also the main focus of my business. My license plates are advertising, something people on the street remember and comment on. It’s been part of our identity for the past year and a half."

Adams said he wrote to the state in late October and was told his complaints and questions would be reviewed by someone in the DMV's legal department. 

"I have not heard back yet, but am hoping they are considering my input," he said.

A public information officer for the DMV told Seacoast Sunday on Thursday, then again on Friday, that he would get comments from DMV officials, but he did not do so on both days.

Adams said he also wrote to Sen. Nancy Stiles, R-Hampton, to see if she can help. 

Reached last week, Stiles said she'll contact the Department of Safety "and try to help the constituent, as I generally do."

"I will take a look at the regulations and delve into it," Stiles said. "Hopefully, I can come up with an answer he likes. I can't always do that. But it is a business. I'll see what I can do."

The temporary DMV rules for vanity plates also now ban license plates that "imply an affiliation with a government entity that is not true," bars plates with more than seven characters, says license plates can't have more than one ampersand, numeral, or plus and minus sign in sequence, and can't have any characters other than ampersands, numerals, plus signs, minus signs or letters. The rules also say vanity plates can't have "only numerals or only numerals and ampersands, plus signs, or minus signs," or "characters or combinations of characters which may cause difficulty of distinction or identification."

Adams said the state has also recently made it more difficult to get vanity plates.

"It used to be very pleasant," he said. "I would go talk to the nice ladies at the tax office, fill out the paperwork and then plates would show up in my mailbox. The model of efficiency."

Now, he said, "I fill out the paperwork at the local tax office, I get nothing, then I wait for a few months, then if I’m approved I have to go the DMV, which pretty much kills your day and you walk away with nothing. And then you get your plates in the mail some point after that."

"This whole process is really unpleasant and takes a very long time and much of it seems unnecessary," he said. " I sincerely hope that changes because I have vanity plates on three cars, an RV, two motorcycles and two business vehicles, and I will not repeat that process if mine are reclaimed and I have to get new ones."

The state charges $40 a year for one set of vanity plates. 

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court issued the ruling in the COPSLIE license plate case. After three years of appealing a DMV decision that said he could not have COPSLIE plates, David Montenegro won the right for those plates through the Supreme Court, with backing from the state's branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. The NH ACLU said in its brief to the state's highest court that the DMV had also previously denied applications for license plates that said EVIL1, CHRIST, DRUNK, FAIRY, GNPOSTL, GUNRNR and IRAQUSA.