What are the old, outlandishly silly laws of your state?

28 comments

1. City ordinance here preventing more than 4 woman to live together with different last names or else it would be classified as a brothel.

2. My town had/has a law banning selling alcohol within 500 feet of the First Church.

3. In my hometown of Ridley Park, Pennsylvania it is illegal to walk backwards in front of the Barnstormers Theatre while eating peanuts while a performance is going on.

4. How much time do you have?

5. These are really fun to look up!

   At some point, someone did something to the point where they had to make it illegal to do that. I can’t remember the state, but somewhere it’s illegal to have an ice cream cone in your back pocket. It was illegal to steal a horse, but if you lured it out of the pasture with ice cream it was fine. It happened so much that they had to outlaw ice cream in your pants haha

6. Pinball machines were illegal in Oakland until like ten years ago.

7. Frankly, I think most “silly laws” are just either real laws whose intent has been misconstrued for internet points, or are made up entirely, If someone has the statute number for the “Men with mustaches” law, I’d love to see it.

8. Dry counties

9. To preemptively burst some bubbles, a lot of “wacky state/local laws” are just normal laws that are presented in a very creative light. For example, “it’s illegal to drink beer out of a bucket while walking down Main Street” is just an open container law—you can’t drink beer out of any vessel in any public place in town. [This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZjOw3r6KvI) is a good breakdown of some of them.

10. Just a warning, that a lot of those “ridiculous laws” on the internet are either:

    * completely made up,
    * unconstitutional and unenforceable, or
    * worded to sound much funnier than they are

11. I’m Baltimore County, it’s illegal to take a lion into a movie theater. Either somebody tried it, or they were just really paranoid that someone would.

12. The “no collecting rainwater” laws actually make sense, but the mustache thing is kinda crazy – I’m curious why that was ever enacted in the first place.

13. Mostly blue laws. At one point in my lifetime you couldn’t buy alcohol on a sunday.

14. Harassing bigfoot is a felony

15. In order to be an elected official in Kentucky, you have to swear under oath that you have never been in a duel.

    “I being a citizen of the state, have not fought a duel with deadly weapons within the State nor out of it.”

16. In Nevada, it’s illegal to put a park bench in the middle of the street.

17. The definition of a **brothel** in Pennsylvania is a house with 16 or more women living together. I understand that other states have a different threshold, like 8 or 10, but PA is 16 women in the same house.

    You cannot sell cars on Sunday. That’s why it’s the best day to browse the car lots.

    Making love potions, fortune telling, etc are illegal.

    You cannot be elected governor if you take part in a duel.

    Fireworks stores located in Pennsylvania cannot sell fireworks to Pennsylvania residents. They *can* sell to people who live in other states, but not PA. PA residents can buy sparklers and certain other products but not the big stuff, unless… PA residents *can* buy fireworks if they have a license from the PA Dept of Agriculture, be at least 21, and it can only have a maximum of 50 milligrams of explosive material.

    Oh, and the obvious one: only the state-run stores may sell hard liquor. Groceries can use a restaurant liquor license to sell beer and wine but liquor is only sold by the state. Every effort to loosen that Prohibition Era law runs smack dab into the state union and special interests making tons off the business.

18. Beaver Dam, WI prohibits any animal other than dogs and small horses from being allowed in restaurants as therapy animals. Not that crazy but the reason the law exists is because someone kept bringing their therapy kangaroo into the local McDonalds.

19. That rainwater one probably has to do with you living in a desert.

20. I can’t plow my Cotton field with my Elephant in North Carolina.

    If I share a hotel room with a woman, we are now married.

21. Our county says you can’t bring a horse into the courthouse.

    I have to wonder what made them need this rule.

22. The state attorney general can overturn an election except it only applies to the largest city and county in the state.

23. Texas – We aren’t allowed to buy liquor from publicly traded companies (like Walmart) but can buy them from non-publicly traded chains like Total Wine.

    We also aren’t allowed to buy liquor on Sundays from stores but can go to a bar and drink liquor or can go to a grocery store and buy all the beer and wine we want. Of course guns are fine to buy any day of the week.

24. Maine blue laws:

    Automobile dealerships are closed on Sundays

    Hunting is prohibited on Sundays (which is fine by me, I don’t have to wear orange during hunting season one day a week)

    Illegal for almost ‘all’ businesses to open on Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving (Mostly Walmarts and grocery stores, but they should get the day off too)

    No alcohol sales between 1am and 5 am.

25. We used to have a law where bars had to be closed on Election Day. This was a thing up until 2001.

    https://www.phillymag.com/news/2014/11/04/bars-used-closed-election-day-pennsylvania/

26. Pretty sure you can’t curse in front of a woman legally in Michigan, spitting on the sidewalk etc

27. About 10 years ago CT repealed the blue laws that said liquor stores couldn’t be open on Sunday. They were a holdover from puritan times.

28. Let’s see. It’s illegal to milk someone else’s cow in Texas.