After reading sekl’s post on an overly-broad Michigan law, I thought I’d take a look at a list of local(ish) bizarre laws. I ended up at dumblaws.com (beware pop-ups), a site which I last recall reading when I was still living with my parents. Given that it only dates to 1998, that narrows it down to summer 1999-summer 2000.
As I looked through the list of laws on the books in various California cities, I was pleased to see that they’d started to cite sources for some of the laws. But some of the actual laws didn’t match what they were describing.
SECTION 8-133.2. DISPLAY OF AEROSOL SPRAY PAINT CONTAINERS AND MARKER PENS. It shall be unlawful for any person, firm, or corporation doing business within the City of Fresno to store, stock, keep or display for sale or transfer any aerosol spray paint container, or any indelible ink marker pen with a tip exceeding four millimeters in width, in an area other than a place that is locked and secure or is otherwise made unavailable to the public and which is accessible only to employees of such businesses. (Added Ord. 93-13, § 1, 3-26-93).
In other words: there’s no law against selling fine-tipped markers. And there’s no law against selling permanent markers as long as they’re locked up where they can’t be shoplifted.
Another one that jumped out at me was a Walnut law that “Kites may not be flown above 10 feet over the ground.” Again, not exactly:
17-1 Kite flying restricted.
It shall be unlawful for any person to fly, above an altitude of ten feet above the ground, or near any electrical conductive public utility wires or facilities, any kite or balloon which has a body or any parts, tail, string or ribbon made of any metallic or electrical conductive material.
(Code 1959, §§ 4211, 4211.1; Ord. No. 501, § 1)
If your kite is entirely wood, string and paper/plastic, you can fly it as high as the wind will let you.
Now if only they had provided a reference to the Chico law that “Detonating a nuclear device within the city limits results in a $500 fine.” (How exactly do they expect to collect?)
I would really love to meet the law enforcement officer that measures pen tips to make sure all those that exceed 4 millimeters are safely behind locked cabinets.
“But officer, they must have absorbed moisture from the humidity! I swear they were only 3mm when I set them out!”
Re: Really dumb laws
Yeah, I noticed some of those, too. But the ones that were blatantly false were even more annoying.
Between the false interpretations and the misleading interpretations, it really calls into question the veracity of the whole site.