Florida retiree shocked by plate that reads like a crude phrase

Nancy Dello Stritto of Pompano Beach opened her mail and found a newly issued Florida plate reading SQZ A55, a combination she says can be read as a crude phrase from a distance. The 76-year-old retiree said she “went ballistic” when she saw it and could not understand how it had passed inspection.

The plate has quickly become a talking point in her retirement community, where the reaction has split between embarrassment and amusement. Dello Stritto has said her sons, many friends and other neighbors urged her to keep it, and one informal family-and-friends vote reportedly came out 16-1 in favor of leaving it on the car. She has also joked that, at her age, she could probably handle a few honks. She said she will turn 77 next month.

The plate was mailed from the Broward County Property Tax Collector’s office as part of a routine registration renewal, putting the episode squarely in the machinery of Florida’s vehicle bureaucracy. Broward County has said it will replace an offensive plate for free at its Plantation office, but the path that allowed SQZ A55 into circulation remains murky. Florida license plates have been manufactured at a state prison in North Florida for nearly a century before being distributed through county agencies, adding layers between the design, review and delivery stages.

Florida law and state guidance allow obscene or objectionable personalized plates to be rejected, and the state can also recall an issued plate if it is later judged offensive. The episode highlights the uneven edge cases that can slip through when automated screening, human review and local distribution collide. Florida rejected more than 530 vulgar personalized plate requests in 2023, according to state documents cited in reporting, but that tally also shows how many borderline combinations are screened out before they ever reach a windshield.

The state’s plate system continues to expand even as it polices what can appear on a tag. Florida requires all license plates to be replaced every 10 years, and the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles says the state now offers more than 100 specialty license plates, with new options added by lawmakers in recent years. In that system, a retiree in Pompano Beach became the face of a far larger question: how a plate can be rejected, approved or recalled, yet still end up turning heads in the driveway.