Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 18, 1994 TAG: 9406210114
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But drivers can get a vanity plate with a tobacco heritage insignia.
A Harley-Davidson enthusiast won't have any luck trying to get a special plate for that shiny hog sitting in the driveway, but someone with a street rod will.
A graduate from Villanova University in Pennsylvania can get a plate, but a member of the Fraternal Order of Police can't.
So goes a freeze recently placed on more than half of the nearly 200 different tags that were available in Virginia - a selection that was one of the largest in the country, according to Jeanne Chenault, a spokeswoman with the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Chenault said the hold on the tags was instituted on advice from the attorney general's office. All tags not already approved by state law were included in the action.
Chenault said the attorney general's office questioned the authority of the DMV to authorize certain tags on its own initiative.
According to a DMV memorandum, "the suspension of plate development and issuance is also necessary to provide the attorney general's office an opportunity to review legal issues generated by recent special plate litigation."
A spokesman in the attorney general's office said it was joining with DMV and several lawyers to develop specific regulations for plates.
Salem's Rudy Padgett and his wife, Louise, didn't know about the freeze or any special plate litigation when they went to the Crossroads Mall DMV branch in Roanoke earlier this week.
Padgett, 62 and a veteran, was told about the moratorium when he asked to purchase a Korean War military service plate.
"You can't describe the feeling when you find out you can get a 'clean fuel' plate, but certain veterans can't get one for their service," Louise Padgett said Friday.
She said she put letters in the mail Friday to Gov. George Allen and state Del. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, asking that the freeze on the military plates be lifted.
Griffith said there has been talk in the General Assembly about the large number of plates available. But Griffith agreed with Padgett's view.
"I think there was concern [the state] has gone too far with the plates," he said. There was feeling that high school basketball championship plates may be available sometime soon. But this certainly wasn't done to harm any veterans."
Military plates approved by state statutes include: the Purple Heart, Prisoner of War, Disabled Veteran, Veteran Armed Forces, and others.
Plates for legislators are also being held under the freeze if members of the General Assembly don't have them already. The same goes for the attorney general.
Staff writer Lisa Applegate contributed information to this story.
by CNB