Veteran wants state to replace 'devil's' license plate

A Nash County man is pleading with state motor vehicle officials to take back his newly minted North Carolina license plate and swap it for another.

The wellbeing of his soul could depend on it, he said.

“I’m Catholic, and I’m sorry,” Lenny Ruiz said this week, “but my momma would come out of her grave and beat on me if I put that on my vehicle. I mean, seriously.”

Ruiz, 59, said he was shocked – if not a little disturbed – when he picked up his new plate at the Rocky Mount license agency off Stone Rose Drive. The special Vietnam War veteran tag was wrapped in plastic and shining, Ruiz said. But there was a problem.

The number on the plate read, A666.

“I’m not the world’s most religious person,” Ruiz said, “but common sense tells you that’s the devil’s call number.”

When Ruiz and his wife asked to exchange the plate for a different number last week, workers at the Rocky Mount plate office told him such swaps were against N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles policy.

A call to the state office confirmed it: “All automatically generated plate numbers are final,” an official said.

Ruiz can buy a new plate if he likes, otherwise he’ll have to stick with what many know as the biblical Number of the Beast.

Some Christians believe the number 666, as noted in the Book of Revelation, will be key in identifying the Antichrist, an eventual sign of the apocalypse.

Ruiz just wants it off his Jeep.

“To me, that’s not acceptable,” Ruiz said. “I think that number should have been pushed off to the side as a, 'Let’s-not-publish-it-unless-someone-really-wants-a-special-request-on-it plate number.’”

Last year, the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles offered to replace more than 10,000 license plates that contained the letter combination, WTF. Officials, who say they program computers to avoid vulgar phrases, claimed they were unaware of the three-letter acronym’s profane meaning among text-messaging teenagers and young adults.

Ruiz is hoping officials soon will offer to replace his plate, which despite sitting untouched on his counter the last few days, continues to “weird (him) out.”

“I’m going to ride this horse as long as I can,” Ruiz said. “Either that, or I’m going to wait until I have another $35, and I’m going to go down there and get another one. That thing has to go.”

Editor's Note: An N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles official contacted Ruiz within an hour of this story being published online Friday. Authorities have agreed to replace Ruiz’s plate, free of charge.