Sen. Wiener Threatens DMV with Cease And Desist For Using ‘San Fran’

Senator Scott Wiener (D-CA) spurred the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to replace licenses that had ‘San Francisco’ shortened to ‘San Fran’ on Wednesday, having the Department waste money and resources on a benign change.

In a letter titled “Slander against San Francisco on Driver’s Licenses” to the DMV on Wednesday, Wiener argued that no one from the city calls San Francisco “San Fran.” Specifically he asked about the frequency that the shortening has been used by the DMV on official state documents and called for the DMV to cease and desist in using “San Fran” on them. He also then included a list of acceptable alternatives.

“I am hereby inquiring about the frequency with which DMV is using this intolerable term to refer to the great city of San Francisco on official state documents, especially forms of identification,” said the Senator. “I am also requesting that DMV immediately cease and desist any and all uses of “San Fran” to refer to Tony Bennett’s City by the Bay.”

“DMV issued driver’s licenses listing “San Fran” as the address. On behalf of all self-respecting residents of the City by the Bay, I’m asking DMV to promptly cease & desist this nonsense,” added Wiener on X.

While the letter was made tongue-in-cheek with Wiener attempting humor in it, the DMV took the matter seriously.

“The DMV agrees: whether you prefer to be from The Bay, SF, or The City, a no-nonsense ‘San Francisco’ works best on a driver’s license,” the DMV said in a statement on Wednesday. “We’re aware that a city abbreviation issue occurred recently for a relatively small number of customers during a short timeframe. We have already made a fix, and those who received a card with the incorrect abbreviation can visit a DMV office for a no-charge replacement.”

Overall, the letter had seemingly been intended to poke fun at the issue and just put in a change so that the DMV stops doing that to the city name in the future. Instead, the DMV had to waste time and resources on Wednesday for a fix, as well as replace licenses. While the DMV didn’t say what the cost was to replace them, it still ultimately has to make fixes on what should have been a trivial issue.

“Wiener was obviously trying to keep it light-hearted, but it still had serious ramifications,” Glenn Harris, a governmental waste tracker who assists university studies on the matter, told the Globe Thursday. “You don’t just throw around terms like ‘cease and desist’ on official state Senate letterheads like that for one. But also the cost with replacing the licenses now has to come from the state. Even though everyone knew what ‘San Fran’ was referring to. It is just a shortening of the city that isn’t liked by some.

“But he had to make a big deal about it, and look at all the effort that went to put the change into place. This was more for getting attention. If it was just a minor issue, the adult thing would have been to make an inquiry to the agency and get a fix that way, and just correct the problem so that licenses in the future wouldn’t have them. Instead, he went the more loud and expensive route.”

As of Thursday, no monetary figure on how much the replacement licenses will cost the state has been released.