A surprising number of stupid laws still exist in American state and local codes. Mississippi can jail you for cursing in public. Wisconsin tells restaurants how to serve margarine. New Jersey and Michigan make it a crime to sell a car on Sunday. These statutes survive not because anyone enforces them, but because repealing a law is usually harder than passing one. And a good share of the strangest “laws” that circulate online, from napping donkeys to tethered giraffes, turn out to have no statute behind them at all.
Why Obsolete Statutes Stay on the Books
Legislatures pass laws to answer problems that feel urgent at the moment. When the problem fades, the law almost never gets a formal funeral. Repeal takes a sponsor, a drafted bill, committee time, and floor votes, all competing with whatever crisis is in front of lawmakers this session. Cleaning out old statutes rarely clears that bar.
The legal term for a law that dies through neglect is desuetude. The theory is that if nobody has enforced a statute in generations, a defendant can argue that reviving it violates due process because the public had no fair notice. American courts have been reluctant to formally adopt desuetude as a binding defense, but the practical effect is similar. Prosecutors exercise discretion, and charging someone under a forgotten Victorian ordinance invites mockery and a constitutional challenge. The result is a large graveyard of statutes that are technically alive and functionally dead.
Mississippi’s Public Profanity Law
Mississippi Code Section 97-29-47 makes it a criminal offense to swear, curse, or use vulgar language in a public place in the presence of two or more people. A conviction carries a fine of up to $100, up to 30 days in county jail, or both.1Justia. Mississippi Code 97-29-47 – Profanity or Drunkenness in Public Place
The statute sits in constitutional limbo. In Cohen v. California, the Supreme Court held that speech does not lose First Amendment protection just because it is “vulgarly expressed.”2Justia. Cohen v. California That ruling did not erase Mississippi’s law or similar profanity statutes in other states. Anyone actually prosecuted under one would have a strong constitutional defense, but the law stays in the code until the legislature repeals it or a court strikes it down in a case arising under that specific statute.
Wisconsin’s Margarine Rules
Wisconsin Statute 97.18 prohibits restaurants from serving colored margarine as a substitute for butter unless the customer specifically asks for it. State institutions like schools, hospitals, and prisons face a stricter rule: margarine cannot replace butter on the menu unless a physician orders the substitution for a specific patient’s health needs.3Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 97.18 – Oleomargarine Regulations
These rules are the last trace of a long economic fight. When margarine first appeared in the late 19th century, the dairy industry treated it as an existential threat and pushed through state and federal measures designed to keep it off the table. Wisconsin’s surviving regulations are the quiet ending of that campaign, technically enforceable despite decades of non-enforcement.
Sunday Car Sales in New Jersey and Michigan
New Jersey still makes it a disorderly persons offense to buy, sell, or exchange a motor vehicle on a Sunday. A first offense carries a fine of up to $100 or up to 10 days in jail; a second offense rises to $500 and 30 days; a third or later violation can mean a $750 fine and six months in jail. Licensed dealers also risk suspension or revocation of their dealer’s license.4Justia. New Jersey Code 2C:33-26 – Sale of Motor Vehicles on Sunday; Exemption
Michigan maintains a nearly identical prohibition under MCL 435.251, which remains in the state’s compiled laws as of 2026. These bans started as religious observance mandates and now function as labor protections, since dealership associations support them to guarantee employees a day off and prevent competitive pressure to open seven days a week. The original rationale evaporated long ago; the current constituency keeps repeal off the agenda.
Tongue-In-Cheek Food Laws That Are Really on the Books
Not every odd statute was meant to be taken seriously, and the ones written as jokes tend to stay put precisely because removing them would spoil the joke.
Gainesville, Georgia, passed a 1961 ordinance declaring that fried chicken must be eaten with your hands. The city calls itself the Poultry Capital of the World, and the ordinance was a deliberate publicity stunt. In 2009, a 91-year-old tourist was “arrested” under the ordinance as a lighthearted event.
Vermont took a similar route in 1999, passing a session law naming apple pie the state pie and requesting that it be served in “good faith” with a glass of cold milk, a half-ounce slice of cheddar, or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Vermont’s Secretary of Agriculture confirmed the law was “surely intended to be fun” and “does not require anything.”
The Weird Laws That Aren’t Actually Laws
Most viral “weird law” lists collapse under scrutiny. A rule of thumb: if a statute sounds like it was written to be funny rather than to solve a problem, it probably wasn’t written at all.
The internet’s favorite is Arizona’s supposed ban on letting a donkey sleep in a bathtub, said to trace to a 1920s dam break near Kingman that carried a napping donkey more than a mile downstream. The story is charming. The statute does not appear in modern Arizona code, and most legal commentators classify it as an urban legend or a long-expired local ordinance embellished over decades.
A similar tale prohibits tying a giraffe to a telephone pole, attributed variously to Vermont and Atlanta. Vermont’s actual statute on the subject simply bars posting signs or advertisements on utility poles. No matching giraffe ordinance turns up on verification.
Arkansas is often said to have a law against flirting on city streets. No such statute appears in the Arkansas Code. The claim likely traces back to early 20th-century vagrancy statutes that gave police broad authority to arrest people for being “idle, dissolute, or immoral” in public. Those laws were used to police social nonconformity until the Supreme Court struck down vague vagrancy ordinances in the early 1970s. The anti-flirting “law” was never a standalone statute.
When a Forgotten Law Suddenly Matters: Anti-Mask Statutes
Dormant laws can wake up. New York’s anti-mask statute dated to 1845, when tenant farmers in the Hudson Valley disguised themselves to attack law enforcement during the anti-rent riots. The law eventually became Penal Law Section 240.35(4), making it a criminal violation for groups to wear masks or disguises in public. It had been invoked against Ku Klux Klan rallies and occasionally against political demonstrators, raising persistent First Amendment objections.5New York State Attorney General. Attorney General James Applauds Repeal of Law Criminalizing Group Mask Use in Public
The COVID-19 pandemic forced the issue. When public health guidance required face coverings, a 175-year-old anti-disguise law suddenly conflicted with official rules. New York repealed the statute on June 13, 2020, when Governor Cuomo signed Senate Bill S8415.6New York State Senate. NY State Senate Bill 2019-S8415
At least 18 states and Washington, D.C., still maintain laws that could penalize people for wearing face coverings in public, none of them originally drafted with a public health exemption. During the pandemic, Alabama’s Attorney General announced the state would not enforce its ban, Georgia’s Governor signed an executive order suspending enforcement, and Virginia relied on an existing emergency-exemption provision. A patchwork of statutes that nobody had thought about in decades became a live legal problem overnight.
How These Laws Finally Get Repealed
The system does occasionally clean house, but only when someone has a specific reason to push.
Alabama Code Section 13A-12-5 made bear wrestling a felony punishable by 2 to 20 years in prison. It was a staple of weird-law lists for years. The legislature repealed it in 2015 through Act 2015-70.7Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 13A-12-5 – Unlawful Bear Exploitation; Penalties
Pennsylvania held onto its Sunday hunting ban longer than most, but Governor Josh Shapiro signed Act 36 of 2025 in July 2025, fully repealing the prohibition and giving the Pennsylvania Game Commission authority to open additional Sunday hunting opportunities.8Pennsylvania Game Commission. Sunday Hunting Virginia now allows Sunday hunting on private land with the landowner’s permission, with narrow carveouts for using dogs on deer or bear and for hunting within 200 yards of a house of worship.9Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources. Sunday Hunting in Virginia: Frequently Asked Questions Oklahoma passed Senate Bill 676 in 2025 specifically to remove defunct commissions and councils from state law.
Each of those repeals had a champion: a pandemic exposing a conflict, a hunting constituency lobbying for expanded access, a cleanup bill with a sponsor. Passing a law creates a constituency that benefits from it, and those constituencies fight repeal even when the original purpose has vanished. The weird statutes still cluttering the books are not really the problem. They are symptoms of a legislative process that is far better at creating rules than retiring them.