Pubdate: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 Source: Telegraph-Journal (Saint John, CN NK) Copyright: 2008 Brunswick News Inc. Contact: http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/onsite.php?page=contact Website: http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2878 Author: Marty Klinkenberg DEPARTMENT WEEDS OUT PERSONALIZED LICENSE PLATE SAINT JOHN - She has grown from a Weed into a Thorne, so surely she has a sense of humour. But a Quispamsis woman's patience is running thin with New Brunswick's Department of Motor Vehicles, which is refusing to give her a personalized license plate that bears her maiden name. Sharon Thorne has even brought officials a copy of her birth certificate, but they still refuse to allow her to attach a tag that says "WEED" to her beloved 2001 Mustang convertible. "I am not promoting drug use,'' she complained this week. "I do not smoke marijuana, have never inhaled it even once, don't sell it, am adamantly against it and have no criminal record. "I have always been proud my name was unique, and thought people would see the plate and realize they went to school with me, or knew my parents or something. It was meant to be a fun thing, but has turned into something really annoying. "I never intended to shock anybody." A 57-year-old mother of three and grandmother to three more, Sharon Thorne went to high school in Saint John and is related to Weeds around the province. Her father, Donald Cecil Stickles Weed, was born in Fredericton, where she still has one sister, who remains a Weed. She also has one married sister in Quispamsis, and family friends in Penobsquis. But despite those roots to Weeds and family ties, the New Brunswick Department of Public Safety is still nixing the vanity plate she so desires. Christianne Mullally, a department spokeswoman, says the registrar refused because the tag could be misconstrued to refer to a banned substance. Which leaves Sharon Thorne, who works for a firm that rust-proofs vehicles in Saint John, fuming. "At my job, I see all kinds of personalized license plates, and some of them make me blush,'' she says. "I chose to use my maiden name, and can't do it. "I'm not a rebel or anything, but I feel like I am being discriminated against. It's not my fault that there is an implication there." Married to a Thorne for 30 years, the former Sharon Weed jokes that she has friends named Outhouse and Hoar who would probably not be able to get vanity plates, either. She also says she has an uncle in Ontario with a pooch named Tumble. That's right, Tumble Weed. Currently, she is waiting for the $170 she paid at a motor vehicle branch in Saint John on April 12 to be refunded. She paid by debit; but the government said it will take five or six weeks for her to get her money back. They have offered a compromise - asked if perhaps there is another phrase she'd like them to consider -- but she doesn't have an acceptable back-up. "I wondered if I could get 'S WEED' on there, but I'm sure they would find fault with that, too,'' she said. "I'm beat, no matter what.' - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin