A Long Island grandpa whose pee-themed license plate was revoked by the DMV is a wee bit peeved about the turnaround — and now he’s asking the governor for some relief.
Seth Bykofsky, 69, said he was surprised when his “PB4WEGO” vanity plates were yanked in January because they weren’t offensive or any more controversial than any other dad joke.
“I’ve driven it through, conservatively, 15 states – red states, blue states, everyone smiles,” Bykofsky told The Post of the plates, which he displayed for more than five years. “One time, a police officer pulled up next to me at a light and motioned over…he said, ‘I just had to stop you. I got such a laugh out of your plate.’”
The West Hempstead man was told by the Department of Motor Vehicles in a January letter that its “rigorous screening process” determined that “PB4WEGO” was “no longer in compliance.”
“What I’m trying to do here at this point is to make people smile, give them a little laugh at a time when we all could use something to laugh about,” he said.
When you gotta go, you gotta go
Bykofsky went yellow and removed them for regular plates with a random stream of letters and numbers — begrudgingly.
“No one I have met anywhere who’s seen the plate or talked about the plate has found it offensive in the least bit,” he said. “It’s clever, it’s comical, it’s witty, and it’s a phrase that every parent and grandparent says.”
After all, he coined the contraction based on years of personal experience with his own two children and later four grandkids.
“You get on the road and 10 minutes in – nowhere near a rest stop: ‘Dad, I have to go, or pops, I need to go. Well, pee before we go!” Bykofsky said.
“In fact, my children, who are no longer little kids, complain. ‘Dad, when we had to go to the bathroom when we were little, you never would stop.’”
Bykofsky — who said that no inspiration came from the famous “Assman” episode of “Seinfeld” — had wanted the plates for decades, but until recently, “it was never available.”
“I had asked for it a number of times,” according to Bykofsky, who added that “everybody in the family thought it was adorable” once it finally reached their driveway.
“My grandkids would laugh. They’d laugh so hard that I have to say to them, ‘Don’t laugh so hard because you’ll have to pee!’”
Bykofsky said he is now appealing directly to Gov. Kathy Hochul to step in.
“This is all funny, and in the scheme of things that are going on in the country, in the world, it’s meaningless…But on a personal level, I think we have some rights that truly should not be abridged,” he said.
“As silly as it is, on the one hand, and it’s definitely administrative overreach to me, it’s also a way of stifling free speech. What will come next?”
He is hopeful that Hochul will follow the lead of former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who personally allowed a local woman named Wendy Auger to keep her plates with the same message in 2019.
“I’ve been in touch with her to say that we’re kindred spirits. We have the support of the people in New Hampshire,” Bykofsky said.
“Their state motto is ‘Live Free or Die.’ Well, in my case, it’s ‘live free, or pee before we go.’”
Whatever happens, Bykofsky has a contingency plan if New York State doesn’t relieve him of his number one issue.
“If I don’t win this battle, I’m simply going to have them framed and put up in my bathroom,” he said in defiance of DMV orders to destroy the plates.
“I’ve seen much more insulting things on cars.”