Did you know that in Gainesville, Georgia, you could get in trouble for eating fried chicken with a knife and fork? That’s right! In this town, they take their chicken seriously, and you’re supposed to eat it with your hands. But don’t worry too much—this law was actually created as a joke in 1961 to get some attention for Gainesville, which calls itself the “poultry capital of the world.” Even though the law isn’t officially written down, there was a funny incident in 2009 when a woman named Ginny Dietrich was “arrested” for using utensils on her 91st birthday. It was all a playful setup, and she was quickly pardoned and made an honorary Georgia poultry princess!
Let’s explore some other strange laws you might not know about. In North Carolina, bingo games are taken very seriously. To host a bingo game, you need a special license, and you can only hold two games a week, with each game lasting no more than five hours. These rules are in place to prevent illegal gambling.
In Oklahoma, there was once a problem with people wrestling bears, so the state made it illegal. It’s hard to imagine why anyone would want to wrestle a bear, but now there’s a law against it. Another quirky law in Oklahoma makes it illegal to eavesdrop on conversations and spread gossip about them.
In Massachusetts, spitting on the sidewalk can cost you a $20 fine. And if you curse at sports events, you could be fined even more. Virginia also has laws against public swearing, with fines up to $250. These kinds of laws exist in other places too, like Australia, India, and Canada.
In Canada, there was a law until 2018 that made it illegal to make or sell “crime comics.” This law was created in the 1940s when people were worried about the impact of violent comic books.
In London, it’s illegal to beat carpets or rugs on the street, a law from 1839. You can beat doormats, but only before 8 a.m. In 1986, the UK made it illegal to handle salmon in suspicious circumstances, a law aimed at illegal fishing activities.
In Little Rock, Arkansas, you can’t honk your car horn near places serving cold drinks or sandwiches after 9 p.m. And in New York City, you could go to jail for putting on a puppet show from a window!
In Boulder, Colorado, you can’t have upholstered furniture on your porch. This law was made to stop students from setting furniture on fire during celebrations.
Some strange laws are still enforced today. In Michigan, a man was fined for using a cafe’s free Wi-Fi from his car without going inside. In Florida, a similar incident was treated as a serious crime. Sharing passwords for streaming services like Netflix is technically illegal in Tennessee, but the law targets people selling logins in bulk.
In Maine, it’s illegal to have your prescription medication in anything other than its original bottle, although there are exceptions for pill planners.
You might wonder why these odd laws aren’t just removed. Changing laws takes a lot of time and money. A new law would need to be passed, or someone would have to challenge the old law in court. So, while some laws might be enforced, others are just left alone.
Remember, even if some laws seem silly, it’s always good to know about them. And if you have any favorite scientists who didn’t get enough credit for their work, share them in the comments for our next episode!
Imagine you are a lawmaker in a fictional town. Create a weird law that could exist in your town. Write a short paragraph explaining why this law was created and how it might be enforced. Share your law with the class and discuss its potential impact.
Choose a country or state and research one of its unusual laws. Prepare a short presentation explaining the law, its history, and whether it is still enforced today. Present your findings to the class and discuss why such laws might have been created.
Participate in a class debate on whether strange and outdated laws should be removed. Divide into two groups: one supporting the removal of such laws and the other arguing for their preservation. Use examples from the article and your own research to support your arguments.
Create a comic strip illustrating a scenario where someone accidentally breaks a weird law. Use humor to show the consequences and resolution of the situation. Share your comic strip with the class and explain the law you chose to depict.
Work in small groups to create a short skit based on one of the weird laws mentioned in the article. Act out a scene where someone encounters this law and how they deal with it. Perform your skit for the class and discuss the reactions and outcomes.
Did you know that in Gainesville, Georgia, you can be arrested for trying to eat fried chicken with a knife and fork? Hi, I’m Erin McCarthy, editor-in-chief of Mental Floss. The Peach State is serious about its poultry, and if you’re going to eat it in Gainesville, it had better be with your hands. By the way, let me know in the comments if you know what episode of “Pete and Pete” this made me think of.
If you do want to keep your fingers grease-free in Gainesville, don’t worry—the ordinance was basically passed as a joke in 1961 to drum up publicity for the town as the self-proclaimed poultry capital of the world. According to a local Gainesville paper, the law was never actually codified, but that doesn’t mean no one has ever been arrested for the offense. Back in 2009, Ginny Dietrich was celebrating her 91st birthday at a Gainesville restaurant when a police chief swooped in to arrest her. Dietrich’s trial made its way through the justice system for two decades—okay, not really. In fact, the police chief had been playfully tipped off by one of Ginny’s friends. After the arrest, the town’s mayor, who was part of the setup, immediately pardoned Ms. Dietrich and ordained her an honorary Georgia poultry princess.
That’s just the first of many things you probably didn’t know were crimes that I’m going to share with you today. One set of laws that certainly wasn’t made as a joke comes from North Carolina, where apparently games of bingo are strictly regulated. In order to hold a game, you need to be a select nonprofit organization with a charitable bingo license. It’s a Class 1 felony to operate a game with prizes without it. But that’s not the end of it; the law states that you’re limited to holding a maximum of two games per week, and none of those games can be held within 48 hours of each other. No individual game can be longer than five hours, and for a game of beach bingo—apparently a thing—prizes can’t exceed $10 in value.
The Tar Heel State takes its bingo so seriously that the games fall under the jurisdiction of the same law enforcement arm that handles alcohol, tobacco, and gambling-related crimes. On the surface, it sounds ridiculous, but there is an explanation: the laws are all about trying to curb illicit gambling.
The weirdest thing about some laws is that they ever needed to exist in the first place, like in Oklahoma, where people were wrestling bears at such an astonishing rate that the state had to step in and institute a fine and possible jail sentence for anyone caught grappling with a bear. This feels like something that should have been avoidable without involving the law.
Okay, so you’ll never actually get fined for skewering your fried chicken with a fork, and we’ll go out on a limb and assume you won’t be wrestling wild beasts anytime soon. But what about this other law from Oklahoma, where it’s a misdemeanor to loiter about any building with intent to overhear discourse and to repeat or publish the same to vex, annoy, or injure others? That’s right—in the Sooner State, you can get in trouble for eavesdropping and then engaging in some juicy gossip.
In Massachusetts, it’s fitting that spitting isn’t just gross; you can get a twenty-dollar fine for doing it on the sidewalk. That’s less than half of the $50 fine you would receive if the state actually enforced its law forbidding people from swearing at players and officials at sporting events. If they did, things would be a lot more cordial every time the Yankees visited Fenway. We actually included that in our 2013 video about weird laws, but I like the idea of a genteel Red Sox crowd so much that I decided we had to list it again.
In states like Virginia, they go after people cursing in public in general. If you’re caught using foul language out in the open, you could be out $250. This isn’t just a U.S. phenomenon either; somewhat similar laws govern obscenity in Victoria, Australia, in India, and in the public parks of Toronto, Canada. Massachusetts is also one of a handful of states in the country with laws on the books that punish blasphemy—a vestige of a time when religion played a bigger role in the lawmaking process. That might also explain why it’s technically still a Class B misdemeanor to commit adultery in New York. Laws have a knack for sticking around well after the world that gave rise to them has changed.
Take this one from Canada: up until 2018, the law stated that everyone commits an offense who makes, prints, publishes, distributes, sells, or has in their possession for the purpose of publication, distribution, or circulation a crime comic. It was put on the books in the late 1940s when there was massive cultural concern about the effect of violent comic books.
In 1839, lawmakers made it illegal to beat any carpet, rug, or mat on the streets of London. The law technically applies indoors, though beating doormats is fine as long as you do it before 8 a.m. I personally think it should be illegal to do any type of cleaning before 8 a.m., but I am not, regrettably, a member of the House of Commons. Around 150 years later, the UK established another one of the Internet’s favorite laws to poke fun at. In 1986, a law was written that made it a crime for anyone to handle salmon in suspicious circumstances. It’s meant to go after illegal fisheries, but it certainly isn’t worded that way. The law was later amended to cover all types of fish, which I like to imagine was necessary after someone brazenly handled cod in suspicious circumstances with total impunity.
Thanks to Lonely Elemental Kitsune for the tip! Also, we didn’t fact-check any of his claims, but bonus shout out to Prospector 40, who was very prepared to provide a list of silly laws from her friends up north. If you want to be featured in our next episode, tell us in the comments about your favorite scientist who didn’t get enough credit for their work. That’s for our next episode—a list of unsung scientists who didn’t get their due.
When it comes to silly laws, some don’t seem to have an obvious connection to well, anything. In Little Rock, Arkansas, there’s actually language on the books that states, “No person shall sound the horn on a vehicle at any place where cold drinks or sandwiches are served after 9 p.m.” You might get off on a technicality if you honk in front of a coffee shop, though that seems like an oddly specific law for a very specific Little Rock problem.
And that’s another thing you’ll notice about some of these laws: they are fascinating glimpses into the unique issues some of these towns and cities face. Everyone knows how crowded the streets get in Manhattan, so it only makes sense that laws be put into place to avoid crowds from gathering around, say, a random performer operating without a license or a person making a spectacle around themselves by attempting to scale the side of a building. Well, it goes far beyond that. In New York City, you could also go to jail for 30 days for putting on, and I quote, “any performance of puppet from a window to entertain people outside.” Wait, what?
And in the University Hill section of Boulder, Colorado, the home of the University of Colorado Boulder, you can’t have a piece of upholstered furniture on your porch. No couches, no recliners—nothing. The law was an attempt to curb the student body’s proclivity for lighting said furniture on fire. Ah, the noble pursuits of higher education.
Most of the laws we’ve mentioned so far are little more than historical oddities. Now let’s turn our attention to some weird laws that are still being enforced. In 2007, a Michigan man was prosecuted for using a cafe’s free Wi-Fi from his car. The problem is, the man never actually entered the cafe; he would just show up and use its internet from his car on a regular basis. A police officer eventually grew suspicious enough to look into it. Apparently, this was an infraction of a law forbidding anyone from using a computer network without authorization, and since the man never entered the cafe, there was no obvious authorization.
The result? While he avoided jail time, he was fined $400 and was ordered to do 40 hours of community service. The man got off lightly—technically, he could have been on the hook for a felony charge and up to a $10,000 fine because the judge was convinced that he didn’t even know he was committing a crime. Even the cop told a news station in the area, “I had a feeling a law was being broken, but I didn’t know exactly what.”
A man in Florida was less fortunate; a similar incident there was counted as a third-degree felony. Remember in the early 2000s when maybe you bought a CD and burned a dozen copies for your friends? Well, if you did do that, don’t ever admit it—that was a violation of copyright law with a $250,000 fine. The 20/20 equivalent of the burned CD is sharing passwords to subscription services like Netflix and Hulu. While there’s no federal law banning that yet, there is one on the books in Tennessee that forbids it. But don’t worry; they likely won’t be coming after you for using your mom’s HBO GO login. This law is aimed at people hacking accounts and selling logins in bulk.
Those are the high-tech crimes that most people are ignorant of. There are plenty of low-tech examples too. For example, you probably know that it’s a crime to share your meds with your friends, but in a state like Maine, you could be committing a crime by even possessing your own prescription medication if it’s not in the same prescription bottle that it originally arrived in. Though allowances have been made for commonplace alternatives to original packaging, like pill planners.
We talked a lot about weird old laws, and you may be thinking, why don’t these cities just repeal them? Well, as Georgia State University law professor Tanya Washington explained on Georgia Public Radio in 2018, a lot of time and money would have to be involved. Either a new law would have to be passed that invalidates the existing law, or someone who gets in trouble for breaking one of these laws would have to successfully challenge it in court and have a judge rule it unconstitutional.
So while North Carolina’s bingo laws may occasionally be enforced, in the end, it’s probably more cost-efficient to just let someone go with a warning for blowing their horn on a late-night walk or for cursing during a Bruins game. Remember, though, whether the police get involved or not, you probably won’t get off with a warning if you decide to wrestle a bear.
Remember to leave those suggestions for underappreciated scientists in the comments. That episode will be up March 4th. We’ll see you then!
Laws – Rules made by a government to maintain order and protect people and property. – In social studies class, we learned about the different laws that help keep our community safe.
Illegal – Something that is against the law. – It is illegal to drive without a license because it can be dangerous for everyone on the road.
Gambling – The act of playing games of chance for money, which is often regulated by law. – Many countries have strict laws about gambling to prevent people from losing too much money.
Fines – Monetary penalties imposed for breaking a law or rule. – The city imposes fines on people who litter in public parks to encourage cleanliness.
Conversations – Exchanges of thoughts and information through spoken words. – In our history class, we had conversations about how different cultures have influenced each other over time.
Comics – Illustrated stories that often reflect social issues and cultural themes. – The comic we read in class depicted the struggles of a community fighting for civil rights.
Fishing – The activity of catching fish, which can be regulated by laws to protect wildlife. – There are specific seasons for fishing to ensure that fish populations remain healthy.
Medication – Drugs used to treat or prevent illness, which are regulated by laws to ensure safety. – The law requires that medication be prescribed by a doctor to ensure it is used safely.
Challenge – A task or situation that tests someone’s abilities, often leading to change or improvement. – The challenge of understanding different viewpoints in history helps us become more empathetic citizens.
Court – A place where legal cases are heard and decided by a judge or jury. – The court decided the case after hearing all the evidence presented by both sides.
