Man About Canton: Mass. License Plates

Did you know …

Massachusetts license plates are made in prison. If you ever wondered about Massachusetts auto license plates, you may be interested to know that they are all made by prisoners at the MCI-Cedar Junction prison in Walpole, where they have been making them since 1920. Approximately 4.8 million Massachusetts plates are currently in circulation.

If you were wondering about the difference in plates with green lettering and red lettering, green lettered plates were issued for a time when only one plate was required on your car. In the 1980s, the law was changed to require two plates, and those plates are printed with red lettering. As the green-lettered plates are given up or faded, they are taken out of circulation. But as of now, there are still about 300,000 valid green plates out there.

If you’d like to have plate number 1, forget it. It was originally issued to Frederick Tudor in 1903, and his family still holds the plate. Low-numbered plates can be retained every year and passed on within your family. If the low number is turned in or becomes available due to the death of the holder, a lottery system is used to reissue the number.

The Registry of Motor Vehicles issues over 200 types of license plates, including commercial plates, antique plates, veterans’ plates, and special interest plates with images such as whales or Bruins or Red Sox logos on them; and for a $50 fee, you can join over 65,000 others and get a special vanity plate with combinations of up to six letters or numbers, providing nobody else already has it and it’s not offensive or profane.

Incidentally, if your plate is not legible or visible because it is covered with dirt, snow, glass, or plastic, or isn’t lighted, you could be fined $35 for the first offense, $75 for the second offense, and $150 for the third offense.

Driving without plates will cost you a fine of $100 for the first offense and up to $1,000 if you are a repeat offender. Illegal use of a handicapped plate will cost you $500 for the first offense with a mandatory 30-day loss of driver’s license. The fine for each subsequent offense is $1,000.

High school students in Massachusetts have improved their four-year graduation rate for the ninth consecutive year. This past year, 87.3 percent of students who entered high school as ninth graders for the 2011-2012 school year graduated within four years. In 2006, the graduation rate in Massachusetts was 79.9 percent. In nine years, the state has seen a 7.4 percentage point increase.

Rosetta’s Italian Restaurant at 521 Washington Street opened for business just over a year ago on February 12, 2015. Carlo Gaita, the owner of the restaurant, has turned the eatery into one of the top restaurants in the Canton area. The restaurant, named after Carlo’s mother, Rosetta Gaita, who also does some of the cooking, has a variety of appetizers, salads, and pizza as well as their main Italian specialties. It is interesting to note that Carlo served in the Marine Corps for more than 20 years before going into the restaurant business. If you haven’t yet eaten at Rosetta’s, set a date to try out this great restaurant; you will not be disappointed.

The Canton High School Alumni Association will be sponsoring a Trivia Night on Friday, April 8, from 7-10 p.m. at the Canton Town Club. There will be a 50/50 raffle, wine raffles, Red Sox ticket raffle, and DJ Gary Titus will provide the entertainment. So bring your smart friends, family, and neighbors down for a fantastic night out. Tickets are $10 per person and walk-ins are welcome. Call 781-341-0935 for more information or to reserve a table.

South shore police departments were recently awarded grants totaling $70,000 to deal with the problem of underage drinking and driving. Canton was one of the 10 south shore departments to be awarded a grant, which was $5,000.

Both the House and the Senate recently passed bills aimed at granting honorary veteran status to National Guard and Reserve retirees with 20 or more years of service but who were never called to active duty or received a DD-214. Although the bills would not grant any additional benefits, they would give these retirees the right to call themselves veterans.

The preliminary school budget recently filed by the Canton School Committee was listed at $38.304 million, which is 5.64 percent higher than the current year’s budget.

State Representative William Galvin (D-Canton) recently announced that Canton has been awarded a $20,000 grant from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to assist in its transition to full-day kindergarten.

If I wake up and throw my feet over the edge of the bed, everything else is a plus.

That is all for now folks. See you next week.

Joe DeFelice can be reached at manaboutcanton@aol.com.

Short URL: https://www.thecantoncitizen.com/?p=32862

Posted by Joe DeFelice on Mar 24 2016. Filed under Featured Content, Man About Canton, Opinion. Both comments and pings are currently closed.