1y ago

What is the silliest law that is still enforced where you live? Why do you think it still exists?

84 comments

It's illegal to have your remains decomposed naturally (or one of those cool new methods like composting or alkaline hydrolysis). You're legally required to be stuffed full of embalming chemicals and buried in a box, or cremated, polluting the air and wasting bioavailable nutrients, to be turned into high pH, high sodium ashes.
I think this is because the laws were mainly created by Catholics (this is Louisiana, where we have parishes instead of counties), and people are still too superstitious to make sense.
- We have a lot of weird hangups on dead bodies and disposal. I wish I could just be buried under a tree when I die.
  
  This is what I want. It’s a chance to continue living, even after my consciousness has passed. My death will feed new life, and I find that beautiful.
  
  I just want to be tossed in the woods and let nature do its course. No embalming, no wasting my ATP with cremation...
  What better legacy than to let your body feed into a food web, and have your energy continually transfered between organisms?
  Naturally recycling our bodies is kind of a beautiful process of energy exchange, and I think it should be celebrated instead of being so uncomfortable with death as a society that we want to spend all this unnecessary time and money trying to preserve a dead body and sealing it in concrete tomb. It's just dumb...
  I just want to be scavenged and fertilize the damn soil. Just toss my limp ass in the woods when I'm dead.
  
  When I die, just throw me in the trash.
  
  Be buried in Washington. We invented composting humans.
- Catholics weren't really allowed to be cremated until Vatican 2, in the 60s.
  
  Vatican 2: The New Vaticaning
- Meanwhile, there's always the Body Farm...

I live in Hesse, Germany. The dumbest law I know about (that's still in use but rarely enforced) is this:
Aus der Altstadtsatzung der nordhessischen Kleinstadt Bad Sooden-Allendorf: In § 10 Abs. 6 ist geregelt, dass „Sonnenschirme […] beige-, pastell- oder sandfarbig“ sein müssen. Wer dieser Regelung zuwiderhandelt, begeht eine Ordnungswidrigkeit und kann nach dem Gesetz über Ordnungswidrigkeiten (OWiG) mit einer Geldbuße von bis zu 15.000 Euro bestraft werden.
Translation: In that particular town, sun umbrellas have to be pastel/cream colors. If you put one up that is too bright / too dark / too whatever, it can lead to a fine of 15.000€ (ca. $16,700).
Source: https://www.bad-sooden-allendorf.de/politik-ortsrecht/satzungen
- Man that is a way steeper fine than I was expecting!
- Is it enforced? And... why?
  
  In all honesty? I have absolutely no idea why this law exists. I only know that, when my mother went to rehab there after a car crash, she wasn't allowed to bring her black umbrella because the facility didn't want to risk a lawsuit. It wasn't even a SUN umbrella, mind you, but they still didn't want to allow it. That's the only reason I know about this dumb law in the first place.
  
  $16,700 is why

Blue Laws
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_laws_in_the_United_States
…Blah blah can’t desecrate the sabbath with alcohol…
¯( ツ )/¯
- Not only can you buy liquor on Sundays in Massachusetts these days, but they even went and legalized tattoos!
- Come to the Chicagoland. Not only can you buy alcohol on Sundays but you can buy it pretty much wherever you want (gas stations, Walgreens, CVS, etc.).
  
  Do drug stores have store brand liquor?
  
  But you can't buy a car on Sunday in Chicagoland. Which is weird.
- Came here to post this.

Until a couple of months ago it was illegal in Sweden for a restaurant owner to allow spontaneous dancing if they did not have a dancing permit. Since July this year they don't have to apply for a permit but still have to notify authorities about arranged dancing.
- I get this law, I for one don’t want those damn Swedes dancing around! (/s for people who can’t tell)
- In Boston Massachusetts a bar needs an entertainment license otherwise patrons aren’t allowed to dance. Apparently they can be hard to get. I got yelled at once in a bar, but I don’t know what you expect people to do in a bar with loud music and lots of drinks

In France, it is illegal to name your pig Napoleon.
- common france L

Can't buy beer or wine at Walmart before noon on Sundays. But there's totally a war on Christianity here lol.
- My entire county used to be dry on sundays,..... but I live 2 min from the wv state line and they give no fucks if you Wana get hammered at 7am Sunday so it was pointless. Now we have Sunday sales after like 10 or so I believe, maybe earlier.
- You can buy alcohol on Sunday??
  
  Only the last year or so. We had a special thing on the ballot because Republicans were sure it wouldn't pass. It did but still has that noon stipulation.
  And side rant here but I'm sick of local people acting like I'm an alcoholic for this bothering me. No, I don't need to drink before noon. I do however schedule my grocery shopping for Sundays before noon as I am a mail carrier with Sunday being my only permanent day off. And I shop in the morning while everyone is at church to beat the crowds. Having to go back out hours later for only alcohol is bullshit.
- Can't buy beer or wine at all at Walmart in my state. Or any other grocery store, unless they have a restaurant.

It's technically illegal to consume alcohol in your own backyard if you can be seen from the outside.

I'm from Seattle, Washington, and it's illegal to pretend your parents are rich here. Not sure why, though 🤷‍♂️
- Just wait until my father hears about this! Now I'm going home in my 1998 Toyota corola. I only drive it because my parents are trying to teach me what it's like to be one of the poor. They're quite wealthy, you see.
- I'd prefer that to rich kids slumming it and cosplaying poor until they get bored of it
  
  Common people vibes intensify.

Mine is J-walking even though police officers J-walk
- I think most people don't know what the jay walking laws are.
- I appreciate the law in Massachusetts, USA where jaywalking is so common that the fine was reduced to $1 for the first three times in a year and a whopping $2 for each time after that.
  You can't remove the law, but you can make it silly enough that it's never enforced.
  
  It seems like traffic lights now go red in all directions, with all walk lights on at the same time, so it’s becoming more common to walk diagonally across intersections as the fastest way.
- I don't even know what j walking is
  
  A made up crime created by the auto industry.
  
  Crossing the street at a place that is not a designated crossing area.
- I've j-walked (at safe moments) repeatedly in front of cops over the years and they never cared.

Well, the DMCA is ridiculous luddite garbage. But it stopped being silly years ago, and shows us our laws are stupid and made by silly people.

The police vow to make a visit if you tie a giraffe to a telephone pole.
- Where else you supposed to tie a giraffe to?

They still don't like smoking weed here in Atlanta, GA...Or the rest of the state.
- It's legal here in Oregon. Only, most places will tell you that you can't smoke on the property. And you're not supposed to smoke it outside in public either.
  So it's legal to smoke in private outside only. And everyone just smokes inside anyways cause it's fucking dumb how specific that is.
  
  Tbf I like all those restrictions for cigs. It shouldn't be different for weed. At the end of the day, people shouldn't have to breathe in someone else's polluted air if they don't want to.
- It's a fine (as in they fine you, I'm not Mario), which is better than before, but ive seen the MARTA police go after plenty of people

A dozen states still have sodomy laws on the books and only aren’t enforced because of Lawrence v. Texas, a 2003 SCOTUS decision.
Be interesting to see how that plays out the next couple of years.

The government should have a say in how you cum. Get off the wrong way with the wrong people ; thats a paddling
- insane wording but ur right

Something about weeing in a policeman's hat. There's another one about weeing behind a car as long as you have one hand on it.
Ooh, source: https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/from-urinating-in-a-policemans-hat-to-wearing-your-sandals-near-to-the-queen-this-country-has-a-host-of-bizarre-legal-offences-2442321 Most other places say that policeman's hat one is nonsense though.

Walking across the street outside of the permitted area even if there is not a car in sight.

Weed is illegal.

My city has an ordinance where you can't park within 20 feet of a crosswalk. It's an absurd amount of space considering that the average car length is 15 feet. They do ticket for that even if the car is completely clear of the sidewalk by several feet, which is what the spirit of the law is about. The weird thing is that there's an ordinance where you can't park within 15 feet of a fire hydrant, which seems more important to have more space cleared than a crosswalk, but what do I know.
- Can't see the silliness in that at all. Over here (Sweden) the required clearance is 10 m (~30 feet) (before the crosswalk, none after). The intent of the law is to allow full visibility of pedestrians about to cross the street.
  
  Here it's before and after the crosswalk. Before I get, that's designed to make sure the driver can see the pedestrians crossing the street. The city sets up no parking signs in that situation for that reason. The silliness comes in when you park on a one way street beyond the crosswalk, which does not block the view of the driver and does not block the crosswalk of the pedestrian, yet it's still a ticket for reasons despite no signs or painted curb or anything that would indicate that you can't park there.
- the average car length is 15 feet.
  I know what you said is wrong, but what did you mean to say...?
  
  It sounds about right to me.

84 comments