We All Need the New Mexico Chile Capital License Plate
One thing that New Mexico is well known for is our amazing chile! It is so popular, in fact, that it has a virtual fandom with incredible New Mexico chile recipes and New Mexico chile festivals. You might even consider yourself to be an expert on New Mexico chile. So, imagine how horrified you would be if Colorado decided to call themselves ‘the chile state’ before the title could be claimed by New Mexico!
That’s almost exactly what happened. New Mexico legislatures were working on introducing the ‘Chile Capital of the World’ New Mexico license plates, last spring. When they found out that Colorado was trying to beat New Mexico to claiming the rightful title as the chile capital of the world, they had to act quickly. They actually added an emergency clause to the bill. They stated that it was necessary to act to ensure ‘public peace, health and safety.’
Who Had the Idea for a Chile License Plate First?
Although Colorado had a very similar idea to create a license plate that would name them ‘the chile state,’ in recognition of their green chile in Pueblo, Colorado, we ultimately beat them to it.
New Mexico Republican state Rep. Cathrynn Brown originally sponsored the idea as a way to provide support for the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum. The bill included an additional fee for the chile capital license plate to provide funding to this institution in Las Cruces. Gov. Susana Martinez loved the idea, but vetoed the bill because she didn’t want there to be an added fee. Rather, she wanted all New Mexicans to be able to celebrate their pride and love of the chile capital of the world, without having to pay more to do so.
Instead of using the idea to raise money for the museum, Martinez had the Tourism Department and the Motor Vehicle Division in New Mexico work together to create a new standard chile capital license plate. New Mexico released the new design in early July. That’s well before Colorado, which estimates that their own chile license plates will not be available until 2018. The MVD issued over 20,000 chile license plates by August.
How Do You Get the New Mexico Chile Capital License Plate?
The New Mexico chile capital license plate has a black background, yellow lettering, and a red and green chile image. This gives New Mexicans a grand total of three standard license plate options.
The classic red and yellow standard plate and the turquoise centennial plate are still available. Like the others, the new chile capital license plate includes the official nickname of New Mexico, ‘Land of Enchantment,’ at the bottom of the plate. The phrase, ‘Chile Capital of the World,’ appears at the top.
The new license plates are a standard option. So, you don’t have to pay extra to get one when you register a vehicle. However, if you want to switch to the New Mexico chile capital license plate from the one that you currently have, you have to pay the replacement fee. This fee is $17 at the MVD office, and $7.50 if you purchase the New Mexico chile capital license plate online. Do you have yours, yet?
