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.'