This week's installment of bizarre Maryland laws takes us to a site where one can examine several of the nation's strange legislative enactments - http://www.dumblaws.com.
While dumblaws.com makes it clear that the laws they list have no legal references, and therefore could be erroneous, their information is gathered from several sources, including state municipal codes, elected officials, books, newspapers, magazines and other websites. So, the possibility exists that some of the laws this site shares are actually on the books.
Without further adieu, some of the Baltimore city laws that dumblaws claims to have verified:
No throwing bales of hay from a second-story window
One would hope that if this is illegal, it's also illegal to throw much more dangerous items out the window. Bales of hay? One can only assume that hay throwing from second story windows was a major public policy issue at some point in Baltimore's history.
It's illegal to take a lion to the movies.
Requiring a specific statute or ordinance for taking a lion to the movies seems a bit excessive. One would think that simple theater regulations would suffice. Alas, someone must have started a "taking lions to the movies" movement that made this law necessary.
No person who is a "tramp" or "vagrant" shall loiter in any park at any time.
They define tramp as a person who roves for begging purposes and a vagrant as an idle person who is able-bodied living without labor. It's a $50 fine.
Though somewhat specific, I'm betting these definitions are hard to enforce practically, thus making the law even harder to enforce itself.
It is a violation of city code to sell chicks or ducklings to a minor within one week of Easter
This definitely seems excessive. Goldfish, frogs and hamsters but no chicks or ducklings? Merchants would definitely take exception to this law being enforced as it would adversely affect their business in an unfair way.
You may not spit on any city sidewalks
One can bet this one is never enforced. Everyone's dropped some saliva on the sidewalk at some point in their life.
You may not curse inside the city limits.
This law is actually very troubling. Let's say someone is speaking out against the government and he decides to put an explicit adjective in front of a public official's name. That's freedom of speech and that, without question, trumps this law. Though I suppose if the law was more specific about what type of cursing and where, it could attempt to past muster. But even then, it's a long shot. So, those are just a few of the alleged ridiculous laws on the books in Maryland.
If you're curious about the rest of the nation, dumblaws has law listings for all 50 states. You can even look up laws from other countries. While there's no guarantee that the site has it completely right, it's still amusing to browse the material to see what absurd statutes and ordinances might exist in your own backyard.
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