Ok the definative answer here, Quarterly the DMV publishes a newsletter, which is sent to each of the dealers, Apparently the one from October has a "clarification" of the current statute regarding front license plates. I have not seen the issue, but the people that told me of the new law are telling me this is where it was read.
The current law in a nutshell says, all cars must have a front license plate unless there is no place for one from the factory. I am not sure if there was a previous law about this that was different, I was always under the impression that all cars must have a front plate regardless of factory location or not. I do know in the 80s I got 2 $25 tickets for no front license plates. So the 3 people that I talked to at the dealer didn't give me all the details before I opened my big mouth.
I talked to my friend that works at DMV, her answer was that, yes two plates are required unless no factory mounting location is available. She said basically each agency will interpret the law as they see fit, and in most cases you will probably only get a fix it citation, however as with what happened to me in my honda, they wanted to pull me over to check me out, so he used the "no front plate" as an excuse..if your doing something you shouldnt, or they think you are, no front plate just give them the excuse to look at you a bit closer.
My apologies for getting our hopes up.
