City Attorney, SFPD Announce A Crackdown On Illegal License Plate Covers

San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu and San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) Chief Bill Scott announced on Wednesday that the city would be ramping up their effort to eliminate the usage of illegal license plate covers.

The covers, which range from simple reflective wraps around the plate used to distort the number to an elaborate method of pushing a button to cover or uncover a plate like a mini garage door, have been growing in use in California and San Francisco for years. Right now, most are used to make it difficult for police to identify vehicles used in sideshows, illegal street racing, robberies, avoiding tolls on toll roads and other illegal actions.

However, with San Francisco poised to make a lot in fines from new school zone cameras being set up because of the recently signed into law AB 645, city officials have been looking at ways to clamp down on things that would impede that. That led to Wednesday’s press conference, where both Chiu and Chief Scott announced a new crack down on the covers.

Chiu said that the plate covers were illegal and sent cease and desist letters to the main online retailers for the covers: Amazon, Walmart, Etsy and eBay. In his letter, he also noted that user reviews often say that they are used to avoid the police and how New York City led a successful crackdown earlier this year, with New York even seeing Amazon halting the sale of illegal license plate covers in the city.

“The only reason someone would put a cover like this on their license plate is to get away with a crime,” said Chiu on Wednesday. “These products are illegal to sell and use in California. Both the sellers and users of these illegal license plate covers need to be reminded of that. We are bringing this to the attention of these large retailers, and we are hopeful they will do the right thing and stop selling illegal license plate covers to California residents.

“A user boasts that it ‘works well for running from cops,’ while another reviewer notes that they have ‘gotten out of a lot of tickets.’ One ad for an electronic license plate cover is described as hiding a license plate in ‘just 1.5 seconds’ to ‘meet your urgent needs’. Our profound hope is that these four online retailers will do the right thing and ensure these products are not displayed on their sites. These would belong in Gotham City. But they do not belong here.”

A crackdown in SF

Scott added that “If these things are on the cars, and we can’t detect and see these license plates, it prevents us from doing the follow up we do nowadays with these sideshows. These illegal license plate covers serve no other purpose but to enable criminal activity and assist individuals in evading law enforcement.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, only eBay has said that they would be complying with San Francisco’s demand.

“Sellers are obligated to comply with applicable laws and eBay makes significant investments to help ensure a safe buying and selling experience for our customers,” said eBay in a statement. “Consistent with our Encouraging Illegal Activity Policy, we are removing the relevant listings and will continue to monitor the marketplace. In addition to removing listings, we are updating our proactive controls to prevent sellers from listing these products.”

Despite the crackdown, many law enforcement experts told the Globe on Wednesday that they could still be easily acquired from other sources.

“These are criminals we’re talking about,” said Frank Ma, a former law enforcement official who now works as a security advisor for businesses in San Francisco and cities in the Peninsula. “If it is illegal, they can get their hands on it. In this case, if the cease and desist works, it just means having a friend or someone outside the city order it. You would need to have a much wider ban in place for this to be effective, as well as higher penalties and fines.

“When I was an officer, we had one year where we had a crackdown on butterfly knives. They’re illegal, but also easy to acquire as you can simply bring them in from other states. It was like whack-a-mole. We got someone selling a bunch, but a few other places to buy them popped up. A local or even a state ban won’t end it.

“And yeah, it is obvious that San Francisco is doing this in anticipation of the new cameras going up. They don’t want to lose out on that fine money. But these are very small things when a wider solution is needed to actually make a difference. Baby steps I suppose, but it will just not effect those doing it unless San Francisco has a strong punishment to back it up.”

Cameras are to be set up soon at many school zones in the city. Fines will be of $50, $100, $200 or $500 for breaking the speed limit by 11 mph, 16 mph, 26 mph, or going over 100 mph.