Two sisters from Overton, Texas are receiving an outpouring of support after local police shut down their roadside lemonade stand. (Ex-squeeze me?)

Zoey and Andria Green, 7 and 8 years old respectively, were trying to raise money to buy their dad a Father’s Day present. They harnessed their entrepreneurial energies and decided to sell lemonade and kettle corn to drivers and passers-by until they earned enough money to take their dad to a nearby water park for his special day.

Overton Police Chief Clyde Carter told the girls they could not continue operating their stand. He said they needed to pay $150 for a peddler’s permit, noting that they were also in violation of certain health codes since they prepared the kettle corn themselves.

(Just a reminder: these were kids…in a residential area in Eastern Texas…selling snacks).

Aren’t there bigger issues that a Police Chief should be focusing on? Couldn’t the fees or permit be waived at the discretion of the commanding officer? I guess Police Chief Carter never saw this video from 2010, wherein a county official in Oregon apologized to a little girl for the closure of her lemonade stand.

The Green sisters have since received tons of support from their community, and have discovered how to use one of America’s most sacred tools: the loophole. As long as the girls “give away” their snacks and ask for donations, they are not breaking any laws–and do not require any permits.

Hundreds of East Texans have pledged their support and plan to visit the sisters’ stand this Saturday. The girls were given (free) water park tickets to both Six Flags and Splash Kingdom after their story broke.

Mom Sandi Green Evans told reporters that additional donations collected on Saturday will be given to the Deana Rinehart and Felicia Roach Overton High School Sports Scholarship Fund.

Any police officers in the area won’t be doling out tickets–they’ll be directing traffic.

Corinne Fitamant

Corinne Fitamant is a graduate of Fordham College at Lincoln Center where she received a Bachelors degree in Communications and a minor in Theatre Arts. When she isn’t pondering issues of social justice and/or celebrity culture, she can be found playing the guitar and eating chocolate. Contact Corinne at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Perhaps New York and New Jersey thought they had dodged the bullet of all of the poking fun that is about to occur in this edition of The Dumbest Laws of the United States. Sorry guys, it’s only fair that we point out the dumbest laws in ALL of the states, right? Which one of you two states wants to take the hot seat first? No volunteers? Fine….

I have to give props to New York for having surprisingly few dumb laws. Fear not, however, as I was able to find a couple. Firstly, “it is illegal to congregate in public with two or more people while each wearing a mask or any face covering which disguises your identity.”

Planning a trip to New York in the hopes of scoring potentially famous chicks? Well, you better not be married and cheating on your spouse, as adultery is still illegal there.

In Kendall, New York, “it is against town ordinances to camp out on your own land more than 72 hours a month. If you want to camp out for two weeks you need a permit, which can only be obtained once a year.” I guess lawmakers there frown upon the joyous act of camping!

There were many other laws listed, unfortunately I couldn’t find any legal verification for them, including the one claiming that the penalty for jumping off a building is death. Another law about which I am rather suspicious claims that “women may go topless in public, providing it is not being used as a business.”

Oh man, I should’ve known to start with New Jersey! That small state on the East Coast boasts an impressive amount of stupid laws. It’s to the point where I don’t even know where to start! I’ll just kick it off with laws regarding driving or vehicles in any way. In New Jersey, “drivers must warn those who they pass on highways before they do so.” If the chosen warning method is honking, that must get a bit noisy on the highway. It will get noisy in neighborhoods too, as “all motorists must honk before passing another car, bicyclist, skater, and even a skateboarder.”

I wonder if the law applies to cats?

Continuing the topic of cars, if you wish to buy one on a Sunday you’ll be SOL, as car dealerships are forbidden to be open on Sundays. If you already have a car and need to top off your gasoline stores, you better not try and fill your tank yourself, as doing so is also against the law.

They celebrate some er…interesting…. holidays in New Jersey. The third Thursday of October is  “New Jersey Credit Union Day” and therefore the citizens of the state must observe the day with “appropriate activities and programs.” With, of course, no suggestions for what activities they should do! I know that New Jersey Credit Union day is enough to have all of you ready to ditch your lives and move there, but it gets even better. In an attempt to make its citizens be nice to each other, the month of May has been designated “Kindness Awareness Month.” Ah, mandated kindness. That’s the best, most authentic kind!

All of New Jersey during Kindness Month?

One dumb law that seemed somewhat rational to me was that spray paint may not be sold without a posted sign warning juveniles of the penalty for creating graffiti. Fair enough. They may as well know all the possibilities. Speaking of minors, in New Jersey handcuffs must not be sold to them. What if they are kinky 18-year-old teens and go to an adult store to buy some fuzzy ones?

The law “It is illegal to wear a bullet-proof vest while committing a murder,” seems to forget the fact that the murder is being committed. I believe that someone dead set on murder wouldn’t really be concerned with laws about what they can and can’t wear. Speaking of emergencies, one must yield a phone line to a person if it is an emergency. “Gimmie your cell phone, I’m starving, it’s an emergency, can I order takeout? Thanks bro.” Does that count?

Because I’ll probably end up giving it to you to BORROW for your next emergency!

In Blairstown, New Jersey, shooting ranges are outlawed, no street-side trees may be planted that “obscure the air” (don’t even get me started on this one), and it is illegal to throw ashes on the sidewalk. I have to wonder if it means all ashes, like from a cooking project gone wrong, an urn, or a cigarette? Clarify, people!

Phew, thus concludes a nice and wordy edition of The Dumbest Laws of the United States!

Marisa Mostek

Marisa Mostek loves globetrotting and writing, so she is living the dream by writing while living abroad in Japan and working as an English teacher. Marisa received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a certificate in journalism from UCLA. Contact Marisa at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Dumbest Laws of the United States: New York and New Jersey appeared first on Law Street.

It’s Christmas! And in honor of the spirit of the day, I am going to give you all a present. (For everyone who does not celebrate Christmas, I am still giving you a gift just because it is more fun to give than to receive.) My gift is some free advice that could change your life: do not go to Indiana if you plan on drinking and being annoying. Because that’s illegal.

Courtesy of Giphy.

Now you know those laws that were created four hundred years ago and are never enforced, but also never repealed, so we all like to make fun of them? You know what I’m talking about. Like how in my home state of Alabama, there may or may not be a law against wearing fake mustaches that cause laughter in church. Or how in Arkansas, you can’t keep an alligator in the bathtub (incidentally, famed critic Dorothy Parker once bought two baby alligators and put them in a bathtub while she decided what to do with them. She came home one day to find a note from her ex-maid saying she quit because she “cannot work in a house with alligators” and that she would have told Parker this earlier, but that she “never thought the subject would come up.” So maybe this law is a good idea if you want to keep good help, but I digress … ) The one I’m writing about today is not one of those archaic laws. This one was actually upheld quite recently.

Rodgregus Morgan was drunk when he was arrested, it is true. However, that alone was not why he was arrested. You see, the cops thought that he was being annoying and, really, in Indiana, that is all it takes. Indiana has a public intoxication law – enacted in 2012, so, again, not an archaic one – that says you cannot be drunk in public and harass, annoy, or alarm another person.

Courtesy of Giphy.

Morgan, as mentioned before, was drunk. So when he wouldn’t leave the bus shelter where he had fallen asleep, even though a cop asked him to do so, he was arrested because, well, that is just plain annoying, right? I mean, it really annoys me when people don’t do what I ask.

Courtesy of Giphy.

Morgan had a different take on the matter: he “wasn’t being annoying;” he was “waiting for the bus.” Hmm. That’s harder to classify as annoying, but I can try to make it work. Maybe the bus would have been really overcrowded and let’s face it, when I cannot get a seat and have to stand, that’s pretty annoying. But would that really be Morgan’s fault? Or is it a product of the situation itself?

At any rate, let’s see what the courts have to say about this situation. Well, an appeals court said annoying is too hard to define, and so they overturned the conviction. I’d disagree with this ruling. I may not be able to give annoyingness a concrete definition, but, like pornography, I for sure know it when I see it.

Courtesy of Giphy.

Luckily, we can move on to the Indiana Supreme Court to find some common sense. In that high court, they basically agreed with me. Which, in my book, makes them the exact opposite of annoying, because I am always right. They said that you can tell what being annoying is by using the reasonable person test and that the statute was perfectly legit. However, they then said that Morgan wasn’t being annoying and so they dropped his conviction. But that is actually beside the point in this morale tale. The point, of course, being that you can be arrested for being drunk and annoying. Which means that many people I know should stay far away from this state because I know a heck of a lot of annoying drunks.

Anyway, I hope everyone has benefited from my present whether or not you are celebrating today. And for the many of you who found a paid vacation to Indiana as your stocking stuffer, I am sorry if I put a damper on your exciting present.

Ashley Shaw

Ashley Shaw is an Alabama native and current New Jersey resident. A graduate of both Kennesaw State University and Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, she spends her free time reading, writing, boxing, horseback riding, playing trivia, flying helicopters, playing sports, and a whole lot else. So maybe she has too much spare time. Contact Ashley at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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From bizarre laws to college admissions strippers, Law Street has you covered on everything you might have missed last week. Our number one story of the week came from Marisa Mostek who added the Pacific Northwest states to her series of the Dumbest Laws in the United States. Hint: hope you don’t want to buy a new mattress on a Sunday, because that’s out of the question. Anneliese Mahoney wrote the #2 post on Columbia University’s policy allowing students who have experienced trauma to petition for delayed exams, which became a hot topic in the context of the recent Ferguson and New York grand jury decisions. And Ashley Shaw had the #3 post of the week with a report on now-defunct FastTrain College’s admissions practices that will have you scratching your head and wondering how this happened in real life. ICYMI: check out Law Street’s Best of the Week.

#1 The Dumbest Laws in the United States: Pacific Northwest Edition

I was wrong a couple weeks ago when I said that California laws are crazy. Many of the Golden State’s laws that I mentioned now seem completely sane in comparison to those I’ve discovered in Washington and Oregon. For example, if you are trying to woo the opposite sex by saying your dad just won the lottery and drives a brand-new Lamborghini when in fact he doesn’t have a dime to his name, you better think again. In Washington state it is illegal to pretend that your parents are rich. Read full article here.

#2 Columbia Law takes Progressive Stance on Mental Health

In light of the incredibly controversial and nation-sweeping announcements that grand juries in Missouri and New York failed to indict the cops who killed Michael Brown and Eric Garner, respectively, Columbia University Law School made an announcement. It regarded the reactions that some of the students may be having to those verdicts, and offered counseling, opportunities to talk to professors regarding the indictment. Read full article here.

#3 BS in Dancing: When Stripper Work Admissions, It Might be a Scam

With a name like FastTrain College, you probably expect a top-notch education system along the lines of Harvard or Yale; however, what you apparently get is a different type of top entirely. When FastTrain wants you (so basically if you are a man), it will send out its top admissions officer. And by top officer, I of course mean an exotic dancer dressed provocatively in an effort to lure you into the school. Read full article here.

Chelsey D. Goff

Chelsey D. Goff was formerly Chief People Officer at Law Street. She is a Granite State Native who holds a Master of Public Policy in Urban Policy from the George Washington University. She’s passionate about social justice issues, politics — especially those in First in the Nation New Hampshire — and all things Bravo. Contact Chelsey at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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