Banned in Utah
March 19th, 2007 | Posted by Stan HieronymusYou have to think there is a homebrewer or beer lover in Utah who is cringing to see the attention a vanity license plate with “merlot” on it received this weekend.
Glenn Eurick’s 1996 Mercedes has had the license plate reading “merlot” for 10 years. He says the plate never got a lot of notice until the Utah Tax Commission told him last week that he had to remove it because the state doesn’t allow words of intoxicant to be used on vanity plates.
Eurick was fine until an anonymous caller told the state that merlot was an alcoholic beverage.
Will somebody driving around with plates that read zymurgy or porter be next?
March 20th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
in all actuality merlot is just a grape
April 1st, 2007 at 1:09 pm
“porter” would probably be interpreted as a reference to Porter Rockwell, an early Mormon thug and enforcer.
….And as such would be okay.
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:45 pm
I might disagree with the Mormom thug comment as I was raised Mormon, but I do think Utah is definitely violating someones 1st amendment rights with such a ban. Should probably have more separation of church and state out there in Utah.
April 3rd, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Force the teen girls into polygamy but no merlot license plate? Sounds like Calvin’s Geneva out there. No dancing either I bet. God is definitely dead.
April 13th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Gee, it took 10 years for Utah to find out that MERLOT grapes could me made into merlot wine? They are really swift in Utah.
April 14th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Who is really surprised that something like that could happen in Utah ?
April 14th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Utah is not alone out there in interpreting the meaning of license plates. I drove for 5 years with the New York plate PRURIENT bringing smiles to the faces of many people who saw it, before a single complaint by a Motor Vehicle clerk resulted in me receiving a letter informing me that the plate had been cancelled because it offended others by displaying a lewd and lascivious message.
April 16th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Somebody on the horn to the ACLU ? “Should probably have more separation of church and state out there in Utah.” — Actually, we need this worldwide.
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Is this man fighting this? If so, we need to join the fight! Free Speech is free speech, people, and this is a gross violation of the first admendment!