Weird state laws in the United States fall into three groups: statutes that are still on the books and technically enforceable, laws that were repealed years ago but keep showing up on internet lists, and “laws” that no one can actually locate in any state’s code. Sorting them matters, because the same five or six examples get recycled endlessly without anyone checking which category they belong to.
Wisconsin Regulates the Color of Margarine
Wisconsin’s dairy protectionism is written into its food code. Restaurants cannot serve colored margarine as a substitute for butter unless a customer specifically asks for it. State institutions such as schools, hospitals, and prisons are barred from serving margarine to students, patients, or inmates at all, except when a physician orders it for an individual’s health needs.1Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 97.18 – Oleomargarine Regulations
Retail packaging is regulated too. Margarine must be sold in one-pound units with the word “oleomargarine” or “margarine” printed in lettering at least as large as anything else on the label, and each individual portion inside the package needs its own wrapper carrying that label in type no smaller than 20-point font. A first offense can bring a fine between $100 and $500 or up to three months in jail. Repeat violations carry fines up to $1,000 and jail time of six months to a year.1Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 97.18 – Oleomargarine Regulations
Wisconsin banned margarine outright until 1967. The surviving rules are what the dairy lobby managed to keep after the full ban fell.
New Jersey Bans Car Sales on Sundays
Selling, buying, or exchanging a motor vehicle on a Sunday is a disorderly persons offense in New Jersey. A first offense carries a fine up to $100 or up to 10 days in jail. A second offense brings a $500 fine or 30 days. A third or subsequent violation can mean a $750 fine or six months behind bars, and licensed dealers risk suspension or revocation of their dealer’s license.2Justia. New Jersey Revised Statutes 2C:33-26 – Sale of Motor Vehicles on Sunday
The statute carves out narrow exceptions for motorcycle dealers holding manufacturer franchises in counties that haven’t separately banned Sunday sales, and for deposits taken on recreational vehicles at authorized off-site sales. Ordinary car dealerships, though, stay closed.2Justia. New Jersey Revised Statutes 2C:33-26 – Sale of Motor Vehicles on Sunday
Virginia Limits Sunday Hunting
Virginia used to ban Sunday hunting outright. The blanket prohibition has loosened: hunting on Sundays is now allowed on private land with the landowner’s permission, and since July 2022 public land agencies may permit it on properties they manage. Dogs still cannot be used to pursue deer or bear on Sundays, and hunters must stay at least 200 yards from any place of worship or its associated structures.3Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 29.1-521 – Unlawful to Hunt, Trap, Possess, Sell, or Transport Wild Birds and Wild Animals Except as Permitted
Mississippi’s Public Profanity Law
Mississippi makes it illegal to swear, curse, or use vulgar language in a public place when two or more people are present. A conviction can bring a fine up to $100, up to 30 days in county jail, or both. The same statute also covers public drunkenness.4Justia. Mississippi Code 97-29-47 – Profanity or Drunkenness in Public Place
Prosecutions are rare. Broad speech restrictions face serious constitutional problems under the First Amendment’s overbreadth doctrine, which allows courts to strike down a law whose reach into protected speech is substantial relative to the behavior it legitimately targets.5Constitution Annotated. Overbreadth Doctrine The statute survives mostly because nobody has forced the question.
Utah’s “Zion Curtain” Alcohol Rules
Utah long required restaurants to prepare alcoholic drinks behind an opaque partition so minors couldn’t see the bartender at work. The requirement, nicknamed the “Zion Curtain,” attracted national ridicule. A 2017 overhaul gave restaurants the option of installing a partition or maintaining a minimum buffer distance between the bar area and dining seating.
The underlying structure is still there. Utah’s alcohol code defines a “restaurant venue” as a room separated from the dining area by a permanent, opaque, floor-to-ceiling wall so that the interior isn’t visible to diners.6Utah Legislature. Utah Code 32B-1-102 The rules have softened, but Utah’s treatment of alcohol visibility stays more prescriptive than most states’.
Repealed Laws That Won’t Stay Dead
Some of the most-cited weird laws no longer exist. Alabama’s bear wrestling ban is the classic example. The state did once classify bear exploitation as a felony under Section 13A-12-5, but in 2015 the legislature passed Act 2015-70, which cleared more than 300 obsolete statutes, including the bear wrestling provision.7Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 13A-12-5 – Unlawful Bear Exploitation; Penalties Bear wrestling isn’t suddenly legal; general animal cruelty laws almost certainly cover it. But the specific, colorfully named statute is gone, and the articles still citing it are roughly a decade out of date.
This pattern repeats. A law passes, attracts attention for being unusual, becomes internet-famous, then quietly gets repealed. The repeal never travels the way the original did.
Famous “Laws” That Appear to Be Myths
The most entertaining entries on weird-law lists are often the least verifiable.
The claim that it’s illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your back pocket in Kentucky (or Georgia, depending on the source) shows up constantly without a statute citation. The usual story is that the rule targeted horse thieves who would lure horses by stuffing a treat in their pocket. It’s charming, but no one has produced the relevant section of any state’s criminal code. When a “law” has circulated for decades without a statute number, folklore is the better bet.
The supposed Gainesville, Georgia ordinance making it illegal for a chicken to cross the road is similar. Gainesville does have livestock and poultry regulations, but the available municipal code describes rules about keeping animals in designated yards and zoning districts, not a prohibition on poultry road-crossing. Some tellings pin the law on Quitman, Georgia instead, again without a verifiable code section. The absence of a citable statute is itself the answer.
Zoning Rules Mistaken for Morality Laws
One category of “weird law” is ordinary regulation seen through the wrong lens. The claim that certain cities make it illegal for several unrelated women to live together sounds like a Victorian morality statute. In reality, many municipalities cap the number of unrelated adults who can share a single-family residence, and the restrictions apply regardless of gender.
These are standard zoning ordinances aimed at density, parking, and neighborhood character. Some cities set the cap at three or four unrelated adults; others define “family” in ways that exclude most roommate arrangements. The restrictions affect college students, young professionals, and anyone else splitting rent far more often than they affect anything scandalous. Courts have generally upheld the limits, though they remain controversial in high-cost housing markets.
Why These Laws Stay on the Books
Repealing a law takes almost as much legislative effort as passing one. Someone has to introduce a bill, schedule hearings, win floor votes, and get the governor’s signature. Legislators rarely spend that political capital on a statute that isn’t causing active harm, however absurd it reads.
The doctrine of desuetude, which treats a long-unenforced law as effectively void, offers a theoretical safety valve. American courts have occasionally acknowledged it (an 1825 Pennsylvania case refused to impose the punishment of “ducking” on women convicted as “common scolds,” and the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals revisited the doctrine in 1992), but most courts are reluctant to declare a statute dead just because prosecutors have stopped using it. Some states use sunset provisions, which automatically terminate a statute after a set period unless the legislature renews it, to force periodic cleanup.8Legal Information Institute. Sunset Law Alabama’s 2015 sweep of 300-plus obsolete laws is what that approach looks like at scale.
Short of a bulk cleanup or a constitutional challenge, strange statutes stay where they are. A law nobody enforces generates no pressure to repeal it, and so it waits for the next internet list to find it again.