21 Of The Weirdest Laws in the USA
In my daily practice, I don’t usually see weird laws, but they are out there. Some of them are relics from the past that really may have made sense at the time they were passed, but others simply leave me scratching my head. They are the ones that make you wonder why a law needed to be created to deal with them in the first place. Here are 21 of those head-scratchers:
- In Alabama, you can’t drive a motor vehicle while blindfolded.
- Another Alabama law says you cannot wear a fake mustache to church with the intent of making people laugh.
- Alaska has a law that prohibits students from building snowmen that are taller than the builder while on school property.
- In Arizona, there’s a law on the books making it illegal to manufacture or distribute fake cocaine.
- Denver, Colorado has a law that specifically makes lending your vacuum to your neighbor illegal.
- In Florida, a woman can be fined if they fall asleep under a hair dryer. The salon owner can be fined for the same offense.
- Also in Florida, if you park your elephant at a parking meter, you have to feed the meter just as if you were parking any other vehicle.
- In Kansas, it is illegal to shoot a rabbit if you are in a motorboat.
- Indiana has a really strange law that prohibits liquor stores from selling milk.
- Not to be outdone, Nebraska requires bar owners to brew a kettle of soup if they wish to sell beer.
- In North Dakota, it is illegal to fall asleep with your shoes on.
- Ohio has a law making it illegal to get a fish drunk.
- It is illegal to swear in front of a corpse in Georgia.
- Bingo games in North Carolina cannot run for more than 5 hours straight.
- In an oddly specific Idaho law, couples may not kiss for more than 18 minutes if they are in public.
- If you are on the beach in Maryland, be careful. If you mistreat an oyster, you are breaking the law.
- You can be arrested for harassing Bigfoot in Washington.
- Also in Washington, it’s illegal to be sick in public.
- In Flint, Michigan, it’s agains the law to wear sagging pants.
- It is illegal to wear an alligator costume in Louisiana.
- Slurping soup is illegal in New Jersey.
Breezing through this list might have made you laugh, but these laws are all real. There are plenty of weird or outdated laws that have already been repealed, but most of them are just ignored. The scary part is that they can be enforced because they are still on the books. In 2009, an elderly woman in Gainesville, Georgia, was arrested for not eating her fried chicken with her hands (she was using a fork to eat it, which is illegal in the city). Fortunately, most jurisdictions shouldn’t be enforcing any of these laws any time soon.
By Ted Burgess
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