Nova Scotia man Lorne Grabher was raised to be proud of his German heritage and last name. So proud, in fact, that for his father’s birthday in 1991, he gifted him a vanity plate reading “GRABHER” that would be used by three generations of Grabhers. Now, 26 years later, the Registrar of Motor Vehicles has terminated the plate, though I can’t imagine why.
“Where does the province of Nova Scotia and this government have a person with that kind of power to discriminate against my name?” questioned Grabher in an interview with CTV Atlantic.
In a letter Grabher received last December, Janice Harland, the Registrar of Motor Vehicles’s director of road safety, wrote, “While I recognize this plate was issued as your last name, the public cannot be expected to know this and can misinterpret it as a socially unacceptable slogan.”
What, PRAY TELL, is “socially unacceptable” about a strong German name like GRABHER? I, personally, do not get it. First they come for Lorne and next the Nova Scotia Registrar of Motor Vehicles will be going after other distinguished family names like Pinchcock, Powerbottom, and Nomeansyes.
Grabher is currently considering legal action to reclaim his custom plates and we, the staff of JIZZYBALL, wish him well.