Brown County License Hearing Guide

Refusing a chemical test in Brown County means a full year's license suspension; testing at or above 0.08% BAC instead brings 90 days. Over 1,285 Ohio drivers a year choose the refusal route anyway, accepting the longer administrative penalty regardless of how the criminal case eventually resolves.

The appeal goes to Brown County Municipal Court, not the BMV directly — the municipal judge has the specific statutory authority to review both the stop's validity and how the suspension was executed. That appeal generally has to be raised at the initial arraignment or within 30 days after. For anything that needs to go straight to the BMV — SR-22 proof or an indigency claim to avoid a secondary suspension — the centralized channels bypass the local Georgetown office entirely: mail to the ALS/Points unit in Columbus, or the dedicated fax and email addresses the BMV publishes for exactly this purpose.

The Reinstatement Fee Comes Due No Matter What

Here's the part that traps a lot of defendants: even if the criminal OVI charge gets dismissed or reduced to something lesser, the $475 BMV reinstatement fee still has to be paid in full if the ALS itself was upheld. The physical license doesn't come back until that fee clears — an administrative toll that has nothing to do with the criminal case's outcome, and one that can keep a low-income driver stuck in a cycle of driving-under-suspension charges simply because they can't afford it.

Hard Time Hits Harder Here Than Almost Anywhere

The mandatory blackout on any driving privileges — 15 days for a failed test, 30 for a refusal — is brutal in a county where driving is genuinely the only way to get anywhere and rideshare coverage is close to nonexistent. There's no way around it regardless of employment or family hardship; the window just has to be served out.