Olive Branch begins 'robust campaign' to address out-of-state license plates in the city

The City of Olive Branch has begun a "robust campaign" to address Mississippi residents who display out-of-state license plate tags on cars housed in the city.

Olive Branch Mayor Ken Adams said he tasked the Olive Branch Police Department to come up with a program to address violators of Mississippi's laws on license plate tags, something he said he has repeatedly heard is an issue from city residents. In a press release announcing the effort, the city said the police department will be "implementing a robust campaign to address violators and will be blitzing subdivisions."

"It's a current law, it's been on the books for many years, and I just think it should be enforced," Adams said. "You know, it doesn't boil down to am I buying my home versus renting my home. It doesn't boil down to how many houses do I have in how many states. You can have ten different homes in ten different states, a person could, and at the same time the law's very clear. Where that vehicle is garaged or domiciled, or frequently goes to and from, is where it should have a tag. It's very clear about that."

The Olive Branch ticket for violating the license plate law is $659.28

Mississippi Code reads that "all persons required to pay the privilege license prescribed by this article shall register their private or commercial vehicle and pay such tax in the county in which such vehicles are domiciled or the county from which such vehicles most frequently leave and return."

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"It is a very unique law because this really is centered around taxing a vehicle. So, by the letter of the law, the person doesn't necessarily have to be driving on the street. It's not a moving violation, it's a tax law violation," Adams said. "But at the same time, it's important for people to understand, it's not as simple as somebody's in a school line dropping off a child at school and they have a Tennessee license plate. Well guess what, there may be a reason for that. They may be living here and have the wrong tag but there may also be a reason for the person doing that. So I'm going to leave the building (of) the case and the interpretation of the facts to the law enforcement professionals."

People living in Olive Branch without the proper tags is a "fairness issue," Adams said. The price of the tags is set by the state legislator and collected by the county tax collectors, Adams said, and Mississippi has expensive car tags compared to other states.

"The people in Olive Branch on eight different occasions elected me as a law-and-order judge, for 25 years I did that, and now they elected a law-and-order mayor," Adams said. "And if the law's on the books, it should be followed."

Adams said that when he was justice court judge the issue was being enforced by the DeSoto County Sheriffs Department throughout the county.

"I'm not sure why that ceased or stopped, but it did and I just think we need to start it back in our cities," Adams said. "I don't know why they stopped it but for years we had literally hundreds of tickets coming in for improper license plates And the tickets were rather expensive. The Olive Branch ticket is $659.28 so hopefully this will encourage people to get the proper tag and avoid coming to court and being faced with a possible fine."

When asked, a spokesperson for the DeSoto County Sheriffs Department said that the department still runs details and issues citations for out-of-state license plates but does not have an official campaign focused on it and is not aware of ever having a campaign focused on out-of-state license plates.

The proposed crackdown has sparked community reaction, including more than 300 comments on the initial Facebook post. The comments seem evenly split, with some people pointing to this always being the law and saying that if they have to pay for an Olive Branch tag others living in the city should as well, while others argue that this isn't the best use of resources and that people with out-of-state tags are the result of the high price of getting Mississippi tags.

For his part, Adams said the reaction he has been seeing has been positive.

"It has been overwhelmingly supported by the local residents of Olive Branch," Adams said. "I had to set up a protocol in our communication center, our dispatch office, where they would actually start keeping a list once we start going in and out of these neighborhoods because people are calling saying 'well, a neighbor across the street' or 'a neighbor two streets over' or 'three neighbors have Shelby County license plates and I want it dealt with.' I don't want that, obviously, going out over the radio every time someone calls in, that's not a priority call. They just need to develop a list and go work the list."

Calling about a neighbor with an out-of-state license plate is no different than calling code enforcement on a neighbor, Adams said.

"We would protect the confidentiality of anyone who calls, just like we do when they call for code enforcement," Adams said. "I jokingly say all the time, everybody loves code enforcement when they're going to their neighbor's house but they don't like it when they stop at their house."

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Mississippi city cracks down on out-of-state license plates