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?
$16,700 is 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.
It’s technically illegal to consume alcohol in your own backyard if you can be seen from the outside.
In France, it is illegal to name your pig Napoleon.
common france L
I’m from Seattle, Washington, and it’s illegal to pretend your parents are rich here. Not sure why, though 🤷♂️
I’d prefer that to rich kids slumming it and cosplaying poor until they get bored of it
Common people vibes intensify.
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.
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?
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Mmm gimme some Walgreens Vodka
AKA homeopathy
Arguably it would be the strongest homeopathic medicine ever made.
All homeopathic remedies are equally strong with an efficacy of essentially zero, so yes.
When I made the joke right after waking up I was imagining just slapping a homeopathic label on regular vodka, but obviously that didn’t translate from what I wrote, lol.
But you can’t buy a car on Sunday in Chicagoland. Which is weird.
Ha true. I find it nice though. Then I can walk the lots on Sunday’s casually car shopping without being pestered by a salesman.
Came here to post this.
Weed is illegal.
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.
I get the idea that people don’t want to get their neighbors’ grandpa seeping into shallow groundwater.
I’d prefer that to formaldehyde seeping into my ground water.
When I die, just throw me in the trash.
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.
I love the idea of reforestation through memorial trees
Sly burial ftw
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.
A friend of mine has his will or whatever say in regards to his body “gut me like a fish”. And I’m with him on this. Harveat whatever organs are still usefull then just use the rest of me as fetilizer. No need for my body to stop being useful to someone somewhere or hell even being useful to the rest of nature.
Be buried in Washington. We invented composting humans.
Meanwhile, there’s always the Body Farm…
Catholics weren’t really allowed to be cremated until Vatican 2, in the 60s.
Vatican 2: The New Vaticaning
Vatican 2: Holy Boogaloo
National Lampoon’s European Vatication
Mine is J-walking even though police officers J-walk
I’ve j-walked (at safe moments) repeatedly in front of cops over the years and they never cared.
I think most people don’t know what the jay walking laws are.
I don’t even know what j walking is
Crossing the street at a place that is not a designated crossing area.
That’s a crime?? Wtf.
It makes more sense once you have someone blindly step out in front of your car, almost causing an accident.
Then charge them with almost causing an accident. Why invent something that makes it a crime to step onto roads.
A made up crime created by the auto industry.
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.
Yup, there are a few towns and cities in MA that do this. Walking diagonally across and all-walk intersection isn’t quite the same as jaywalking, since in those cases you’re allowed to cross (as long as the walk sign is on).
It’s also way safer to have an all-walk intersection so cars stop hitting people on right turns.
It’s also way safer to have an all-walk intersection so cars stop hitting people on right turns.
Well that part doesn’t seem to have worked out. I don’t know if this is part of forgetting how to drive during COViD or just that I started walking around town more, but people turning right on red no longer stop, and barely slow down. It can be dangerous crossing streets, even on a wall signal or with flashing pedestrian lights
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?
Walking across the street outside of the permitted area even if there is not a car in sight.
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.
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
Can’t buy beer or wine at Walmart before noon on Sundays. But there’s totally a war on Christianity here lol.
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.
I don’t even drink and I think those laws are insanity
I worked at a grocery store on the coast when I was in HS. The number of boat trips that the noon alcohol blue laws delayed is astonishing. Every Sunday there would be a line of people wanting to checkout with their alcohol. Something people would wait hours to check out
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.
Can’t buy beer or wine at all at Walmart in my state. Or any other grocery store, unless they have a restaurant.
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
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.
