Strange laws in the US that are actually enforced make up a much smaller group than viral lists suggest. Most of the “you can’t fish from a camel” claims circulating online either never existed or distort a real statute beyond recognition. The genuinely odd laws still on the books tend to be either narrow state statutes with real code sections, local ordinances written to solve specific local problems, or broad categories like blue laws and anti-mask statutes that quietly affect millions of people every week.
How to Spot a Real Strange Law
The simplest test is whether a claim comes with a statute number. Most viral “weird law” lists don’t include one, and when researchers try to track the claims to actual codes, the trail usually goes cold.
The camel-fishing law is a good example. The story appears to trace back to a 1917 Idaho bill that would have made it “unlawful to ride up or down a stream on the back of any animal while fishing.” The bill never mentioned camels, and there’s no clear evidence it became law.1East Idaho News. Did Idaho Once Have a Law That Made Fishing Off a Camel’s Back Illegal? Over the decades it morphed into something far more colorful than the original text. The same goes for the ice-cream-cone-in-the-back-pocket story and the fake-mustache-in-church claim pinned to Alabama. Neither comes with a verifiable statute.
A useful rule: if a claim doesn’t name the state, the code section, and ideally link to the statute text, treat it as entertainment.
Odd State Laws You Can Actually Look Up
Plenty of genuinely strange statutes do exist, and each has a real code section attached. A few that hold up to verification:
- California: if a frog dies during a frog-jumping contest, it must be destroyed and cannot be eaten (Fish and Game Code Section 6883).
- Florida: bars and alcohol-licensed businesses are prohibited from hosting “dwarf-tossing” events (Florida Statutes Section 561.665).
- Idaho: cannibalism is specifically criminalized, with a penalty of up to 14 years and an affirmative defense for survival situations (Idaho Code Section 18-5003).
- New Jersey: self-service gasoline is prohibited statewide; an attendant must pump your gas (N.J.S.A. Section 34:3A-4).
- Washington: it is illegal to use an X-ray device to check whether a pair of shoes fits (RCW 70A.388.190).
Most of these have logical origins. The shoe-fitting X-ray ban dates to an era when retailers used fluoroscopes to show customers the bones of their feet inside shoes, exposing both customers and salespeople to unnecessary radiation. The frog-eating rule connects to Calaveras County’s famous jumping contest, where officials apparently wanted to stop people from entering store-bought frogs, winning, and then taking them home for dinner. The context doesn’t make the laws less strange, but it does make them less random.
Local Ordinances That Quietly Get Enforced
Some of the quirkiest-sounding rules aren’t dusty relics. They’re active municipal ordinances written in response to specific local problems, and the fines are real.
Porch Couch Bans
Several college towns ban upholstered furniture on porches, balconies, and front yards. Ann Arbor, Michigan enacted its ban in 2010 after a porch-couch fire killed a 22-year-old student. Lawrence, Kansas passed a similar rule in 2013. Fines can reach $1,000 in some jurisdictions. Old upholstered furniture ignites easily, and porch fires during post-game celebrations had been a recurring problem.
Grass Height Rules
Most cities set a maximum grass height, commonly six to eight inches, and enforce it aggressively. The typical process: the city sends a notice giving you about seven days to mow. If you don’t, the city hires a contractor, does the work, and bills you for the cost plus an administrative fee. If you still don’t pay, the amount gets added to your property tax bill as a special assessment. In practical terms the city places a lien on your home over unmowed grass. Repeat offenders face escalating fees.
Exterior Paint Color
Homeowners in historic districts often discover they can’t paint their house whatever color they want. Many municipalities require exterior colors to “harmonize with the palette found on other houses of the same period” in the district. In practice, you submit your color choice for approval before buying the paint. Violations can lead to fines and orders to repaint at your own expense.
Blue Laws and Sunday Sales
Blue laws restricting Sunday commerce are among the oldest strange laws still in force, and many Americans run into them without thinking about the history. They trace back to colonial-era Sabbath observance rules and were once far more sweeping than the alcohol-specific versions that survive today.
About 38 states and Washington D.C. allow some form of off-premise retail spirits sales on Sundays, which means a meaningful number still don’t. Indiana has been the last state to maintain a full ban on off-premise Sunday sales of all alcoholic beverages, including beer and wine. Other states allow beer and wine but not spirits, creating so-called “moist” counties. Many jurisdictions that technically allow Sunday sales still restrict the hours, with some not permitting sales before 10 a.m. or noon.
The restrictions don’t just affect alcohol. Car dealerships in several states are required by law to close on Sundays. These laws have survived constitutional challenges because courts have found they serve a secular purpose, providing a uniform day of rest, even if their origins were religious.
Anti-Mask Laws
About two dozen states and Washington D.C. restrict face coverings in public. Most of these laws predate anything to do with COVID. The earliest appeared in the mid-1800s, and the largest wave was passed in response to the Ku Klux Klan, whose members used masks and hoods to conceal their identities while terrorizing victims.
The statutes vary in how they operate. Some are broad bans on wearing any mask in public, with specific exceptions for holidays, athletic events, and religious observances. Others apply only when someone wears a mask with the intent to avoid identification while committing a crime, which turns the mask into a penalty enhancer rather than an offense on its own. California’s version dates to 1873 and targets masking done specifically to evade identification during an offense. Alabama’s law, enacted in 1949, makes it an offense to even loiter in public while masked, with exceptions for parades and masquerade parties. These statutes have drawn renewed attention during both pandemic-era mask mandates and recent protest movements.
What Happens If You’re Actually Charged Under an Old Law
This isn’t purely hypothetical. In 2010, Beacon, New York forced a retro arcade museum to shut down by citing a decades-old ordinance banning pinball machines, with a threatened $1,000-per-day fine. In 2009, a 91-year-old woman in Gainesville, Georgia was briefly “arrested” for eating fried chicken with a fork under a local ordinance. The mayor pardoned her immediately as a publicity stunt, but the ordinance was real.
When enforcement actually happens, the most common defense is that the statute is unconstitutionally vague. The void-for-vagueness doctrine, rooted in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, holds that a criminal law must give ordinary people fair notice of what conduct is prohibited. A statute so old or poorly drafted that a reasonable person couldn’t understand what it bans can be struck down on that basis.
You may also hear about the doctrine of desuetude, the idea that a law loses its force through prolonged non-enforcement. It’s a real legal concept, but American courts have largely rejected it. The prevailing “American Rule” is that disuse alone does not give courts the power to nullify a statute.2Utah Law Review. Desuetude, Due Process, and the Scarlet Letter Revisited Some courts have arrived at similar results through the back door. Where an ancient, unenforced statute is suddenly revived against a single defendant, courts have occasionally found that enforcement violates due process because the defendant had no fair warning the law would actually be applied. The practical effect resembles desuetude, even if courts don’t use the word.
In most realistic scenarios, a prosecutor who tried to charge someone under a truly archaic statute would face a judge uninterested in wasting court resources and a defense attorney armed with constitutional arguments. The charge would likely be dismissed. The legal fees and hassle of getting there would still be real.