It is against the law

to buy ice cream after 6 p.m. in Newark, N.J., unless you have a written note from a doctor.

for children to buy lollipops in Spokane, Wash.

for a barber to shave a customer’s chest in
Omaha, Neb.

for dogs to get in the way of people walking in Pateros, Wash.

for cars to drip on the pavement in Green Bay, Wis. There is a $1 fine for each drip.

to enter a public theater or a streetcar within four hours of eating garlic in Gary, Ind.

to remove your shoes if your feet smell while you’re in a theater in Winnetka, Ill.

to mail an entire building. A man mailed a 40,000 ton brick house across Utah in 1916 to avoid high freight rates, so the act was made illegal.

to drive blindfolded in Alabama.

to give moose alcoholic beverages in Alaska.

for a woman to wear pants in Tucson, Ariz.

for dogs to bark after 6 p.m. in Arkansas.

to insert pennies in your ear in Hawaii.

to eat in a place that is on fire in Chicago, Ill.

to ride a bike faster than 65 mph in Connecti cut.

to sing in any public place while wearing a swimming suit in Florida.

for monkeys to smoke cigarettes in Indiana.

to kiss someone for more than five minutes in Iowa.

to gargle in public in Louisiana.

to set fire to a mule in Maine.

to tickle a girl in West Virginia.

to drive any car while you’re sleeping in Tennessee.

to drive in a house coat in California.

to fall asleep under a hair dryer in Florida.

to swear in front of women and children in Michigan.

to throw a ball at someone’s head for fun in New York.

to fall asleep with your shoes on in North Dakota.

Information was compiled from the Web site (www.dumblaws.com).

Dumb Laws

By Natasha Terc
Skiff Staff

In North Carolina, it is illegal to stand while drinking a beer. In Austin, wire cutters cannot be carried in one’s pocket. In Dallas, the possession of a realistic dildo is illegal. And in Texas, until 20 years ago, if you caught your wife having sex with another man, it was legal to kill her or her partner.

Times may be changing, but the laws in the books haven’t quite kept up.

According to the Web site, (www.dumblaws.com), these old laws are just a few of hundreds that lawmakers once put in the books and haven’t taken out.

Dan Wingo, a retired Fort Worth police officer, had been with the department since 1966, and he remembers when some of the wacky laws were still being enforced.

Wingo said he had a friend whose grandfather took the law into his own hands after he caught his wife cheating.

“My friend’s grandfather was sentenced to five years in prison because he didn’t (kill the guy) right away — you had to catch them in the act,” Wingo said. “He found the guy somewhere and killed him in a shootout. But later the governor gave him a pardon.”

Photo by Tim Cox - Skiff Staff The Encyclopedia Britannica was banned in Texas because it contains a recipe to beer.

Wingo said one old law took littering to a new level. He chuckled when he recounted the first time he found out it was illegal to throw a chicken bone with any meat attached out a car window.

“I pulled over a guy who was eating on a chicken bone, and he threw it on my boot while I was writing him a ticket,” Wingo said. “So, after (I finished with the first ticket), I wrote him another one for littering. The judge asked me why I didn’t just write it for throwing out a bone with meat still on it.”

Wingo said the law was probably passed because of hard financial times people underwent after the Great Depression when food was sparse.

In North Carolina in the 1960s, it was against the law to drink beer while standing, Wingo said.

“You couldn’t even walk across the room with a beer in your hand,” Wingo said. “You had to ask the waitress to move it for you.”

Don Jackson, chairman of the political science department, said there are laws that are obsolete, which have not been enforced in a long time.

“If no one is trying to enforce them, then it’s not worth the time to try and get them off the books,” Jackson said. “It takes a lot of time and effort to get rid of old laws.”

According to the Dumb Laws Web site, the entire Encyclopedia Britannica is banned in Texas, because it contains a recipe for beer. The TCU library has the whole set, as well as the online version.

“Banning the Encyclopedia Britannica is entirely unconstitutional,” Jackson said. “Censorship laws are almost always unenforceable.”

TCU Chief of Police Steve McGee said many students do not understand how police enforce the public intoxication law.

“If you’ve had only a few sips of a beer, you can be arrested for mouthing off,” McGee said. “If you smart off to a cop, he can assume you’re a danger to others and yourself as well. They take you downtown, put you in the drunk tank for four hours, fine you and won’t give you an alcohol test even if you ask for it.

A lot of people have heard that it is against the law to drive barefoot, but Wingo said that it’s safer to drive without shoes.

“I’ve pulled women over who I could tell were nervous and trying to hide their bare feet,” Wingo said. “But it has never been against the law. It’s actually safer because you get a better feel of the pedals.” 

Chip Burns, assistant professor of criminal justice, said old laws are rarely purged. He said as long as they are in the books, the laws can be enforced. 

“Officers are given latitude on what they can and cannot enforce,” Burns said. “But it is how they use this discretion that affects community and police relations.”

Natasha Terc
n.f.terc@student.tcu.edu