Summary of laws enacted in ’05 session

loading...

A summary of some of the new laws emerging from the 2005 legislative session:

Gay rights

. The Maine Human Rights Act is amended to protect homosexuals from discrimination in employment, housing, credit, and public accommodations.

Consumer protection

. Insurance companies can’t imply to customers who have claims for auto crashes that they must go to designated shops to get their cars repaired.

. The use of electronic scanning devices or encoders to steal personal financial data from credit, debit or charge cards becomes a crime.

. The law that governs the sale of stocks, bonds and other securities is overhauled.

. Solicitations delivered by fax machines are illegal nights and weekends.

. Public interest pay phones are preserved in areas unserved by public phones.

Fees and taxes

. Marriage license fees rise from $20 to $30.

. Burial permit fees rise from $1 to $5.

. Towns and cities can also charge higher fees for copies of birth, marriage and death certificates.

. No sales tax on bull semen, a staple of dairy operations.

Outdoors

. Hunters may use electronic moose-calling devices.

. Crossbows can be used for big game hunting during firearms season.

. Hunters may swap permits between seasons and zones before the beginning of the season.

. Thirty-five hundred additional spring turkey hunting permits authorized.

. Snowmobile trail grooming equipment must be registered for one-time fee of $33.

Highways

. Passing a vehicle where the road is painted with an unbroken centerline or an unbroken line in the operator’s lane is illegal.

. Radar detectors are illegal for motorists under 18 who have intermediate licenses (governor’s signature pending).

. Fines for not using a safety belt rise.

Drugs and alcohol

. Minors can’t enter tobacco specialty shops unless accompanied by a parent.

. Machines that vaporize alcohol so it can be inhaled through the lungs are banned (governor’s signature pending).

. It is no longer against the law to place prescription medications in pill boxes, which are widely used to parcel out each day’s dose (governor’s signature pending).

Mainers’ Moxie

. Former patent medicine Moxie becomes Maine’s official soft drink.