NY Governor Hochul Is No. 1 In Free Speech, Lets Long Island Grandpa Keep Pee-Themed License Plate
We love seeing a good personalized license plate, and we love it even more when we get a chance to chuckle at the personalized license plate requests that ended up getting denied for asinine reasons like potty humor. There's a rare bit of good news for lovers of kinda-gross-yet-funny personalized plates, though. Yesterday, NY Governor Kathy Hochul personally called a 69-year-old Long Island grandfather to pardon his pee-themed plate that the DMV revoked after five years in service on his Hyundai Tucson. What a relief!
The New York Post first covered this mess when Seth Bykofsky made a pee plea to Hochul to reinstate his innocuous potty humor plate that reads "PB4WEGO." When Hochul saw the story, she just couldn't let it go. She showered Bykofsky with praise, saying she thought it was hilarious and, "I think everybody should be reminded to pee before you go." It's a sentiment that we can all relate to, but it's still relieving to see a politician with a golden sense of humor.
Apparently, governors love PB4WEGO
Bykofsky is actually the number two person to face this peedicament — the real number one is New Hampshire resident Wendy Auger. She faced this same challenge in 2019, when she received a pardon by former NH Gov. Chris Sununu for her own PB4WEGO plate, opening the floodgates. It was a watertight argument for Bykofsky, who said he should get the same treatment as Auger, considering they share an understanding of the importance of peeing before you go. Hochul agreed, saying, "I think that's an important lesson."
The DMV sent Bykofsky a letter saying a recent review found the message to be too inappropriate for street use, and ordered him to destroy the tags. Facing pressure, he complied, but thankfully it was only a temporary blockage. Bykofsky told the NY Post, "It was very heartwarming and good to know that the government stands up for our rights, not only under the First Amendment, but to laugh, to laugh at ourselves, and to laugh at others."