3 Funny Laws in New York
While weekend brunchers last week toasted the end to the blueish law that prohibited restaurants from serving booze before noon on Sunday, New Yorkers are nevertheless saddled with dozens of anachronistic laws that today seem staggeringly stupid.
Gotham residents aren't even enlightened of one-half the ancient laws they might be breaking every solar day — especially those who dabble in puppetry, hang laundry, eat water ice cream or flirt.
Luckily for these blissful lawbreakers, most cops are as ignorant of these wacky statutes as they are.
Many bluish laws "were designed for a religious purpose, but when they are challenged legally, the courts well-nigh ever strike the laws downwards," said professor David J. Hanson, a
SUNY-Potsdam sociologist.
"They go back to the 1700s," he explained. "They were designed actually to encourage and reinforce church omnipresence and they originally covered all sorts of behaviors . . . no playing games, no sports, no sex. Back in the twenty-four hours, George Washington almost got arrested for traveling on Lord's day."
Ceremonious-rights attorney Ron Kuby noted that in one case such rules are codified into law, they tend to stick around for a while.
"It's easy to pass laws regulating people'south behavior," he said. "It is very difficult to repeal those laws."
It requires political courage to erase them.
"Morality laws tend to get passed in a flurry of indignation nigh i offense or another," Kuby explained. "They remain on the books because you lot need an affirmative human activity to repeal them, and you risk angering those who supported them in the commencement place — and you appear to be endorsing the beliefs that'south been outlawed."
Kuby called New York'due south penal code "an archæology of the eras of New York" littered with rules that "would exist unconstitutional today.
"So they linger like old family unit photos in the books. And occasionally the books get opened by a reporter and we say, 'Await at those people, expect at that time . . . How weird?' "
Among the city and state'south lamest laws:
It is confronting the law to throw a ball at someone's confront for fun
A person is guilty of "offensive exhibition" if they operate a public event where a person is "voluntarily submitting to indignities such as the throwing of balls … at his head or trunk." The law's origins appear to protect carnies from abusive bosses. Other sections outlaw "propelling" knives at a person, or making them dance or ride a bike "without respite for more than 8 hours."
Information technology is illegal to sell cat or canis familiaris hair
A statute that'due south part of the country's anti-cruelty provisions makes it a crime to " import, sell, offer for sale . . . ship or otherwise marketplace" canis familiaris or true cat fur. If y'all're trafficking in coyote, play a trick on, lynx or bobcat fur, on the other hand, you're good.
Flirting tin can consequence in a $25 fine
Flutter your eyelids at that handsome straphanger and be prepared to cough up a $25 fine. "I wonder if [the no-flirting edict] is actually code for soliciting or prostitution," Hanson said. "The farther back you get, the more likely the terms used were euphemistic."
A license must exist purchased earlier hanging clothes on a clothesline
If cops ever croaky downwards on this law — a license is needed to hang a clothesline — half of Brooklyn would be in jail. Many states are currently revoking clothesline bans because what were one time considered eyesores are now viewed equally eco-friendly.
No taking selfies with tigers
On the books since 2014 with a $500 fine, Manhattan Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal introduced the measure to prevent maulings — there were 2 in the last 10 years — at traveling circuses and county fairs where the public is allowed to cozy up to big cats.
It'southward confronting the police force to run a boob show in a window
Don't even retrieve almost it, Geppetto! Section x-114 of the urban center administrative code cracks down on those who utilise "any window or open space of any business firm . . . [for] any performance of puppet or other figures." The penalty for perpetrating puppetry is upwards to a $25 fine and xxx days in jail.
You may not walk around on Sundays with an ice foam cone in your pocket
No i seems to know where this constabulary comes from, but CraveOnline.com notes there were once blue laws confronting eating ice cream on Sundays. Then theoretically, sweetness-toothed outlaws would pocket their vanilla cones to hide them from passing policemen.
Information technology's illegal for two or more mask-wearing people to congregate in public
Yous'd never know it from watching the parade of creepy costumed panhandlers in Times Square, just information technology'south actually confronting the constabulary — New York Penal Police force 240.35 — to congregate in public with 2 or more than people while each is wearing a mask or any confront covering disguising their identity.
The law has existed since 1845, "when tenant farmers, in response to a lowering of wheat prices, dressed up" equally Native Americans, co-ordinate to DumbLaws.com and "covered their faces with masks in club to assault the police anonymously."
Of form, there is special dispensation for masquerade parties and Halloween.
Source: https://nypost.com/2016/06/19/new-york-citys-most-ridiculous-laws/
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