"...no person shall keep a live rooster, duck, goose or turkey..."
June 29, 2016 7:53 AM Subscribe
Rolling out the red carpet on the streets of New York comes at a price — those who fail to “submit an official permit application to the Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting no less than two weeks prior to the date of the event” can expect to pay up to $24,000 in fines for each unveiling.How Many Of These Strange & Obscure NYC Laws Have You Broken?
Throughout much of the late 1990s, Rudy Giuliani relied on this law to regularly shut down nightclubs he deemed a disruption to “quality of life,”
translation: gay bars. Can't say it loud enough: FUCK GIULIANI.
posted by sexyrobot at 8:54 AM on June 29, 2016 [6 favorites]
translation: gay bars. Can't say it loud enough: FUCK GIULIANI.
posted by sexyrobot at 8:54 AM on June 29, 2016 [6 favorites]
That's right baby, I'm bad, I'm real bad
*unfurls carpet*
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 9:00 AM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
*unfurls carpet*
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 9:00 AM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Write seems to have googled nicely:
Ranker
NY Post
Dumb Laws
Long Island.com
I'm sure a brisk turn in the world of original research at FindLaw would have turned up even more.
posted by Ideefixe at 9:18 AM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Ranker
NY Post
Dumb Laws
Long Island.com
I'm sure a brisk turn in the world of original research at FindLaw would have turned up even more.
posted by Ideefixe at 9:18 AM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
On one hand, the anti-fortune telling statute is best used for cases like this one. On the other hand, the dancing one needs to go and fuck Giuliani.
Also, I'd find myself learning how to pluck a chicken if someone kept a rooster nearby. Unless they were really good about not letting it see light until 7am or so.
posted by Hactar at 9:26 AM on June 29, 2016
Also, I'd find myself learning how to pluck a chicken if someone kept a rooster nearby. Unless they were really good about not letting it see light until 7am or so.
posted by Hactar at 9:26 AM on June 29, 2016
tbh i kind of miss living on the lower east side before gentrification drove away all the rooster-havers. it was a great way to remind me that i really should be getting home and going the fuck to sleep.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:59 AM on June 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 9:59 AM on June 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
Wiggum: Hey, according to the charter, as chief constable, I’m supposed to get a pig every month! And ‘two comely lasses of virtue true’.
posted by hangashore at 11:07 AM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by hangashore at 11:07 AM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
SO we can make fun little comments, but the article actually points at, at minimum, two major issues with the way that law is constructed in the US for individuals who are subject to it.
First, you are expected to follow an enormous corpus of law without having any training of where it is, what it says, what applies to you and how to find out whether something is legal. For instance, as a tenant, do NY's "Housing Maintenance Codes" apply to individuals or just to building owners? Likewise, "no person shall keep a live rooster, duck, goose or turkey in a built-up portion of the City" seems clear until you start to ask: what are the built-up portions of the city? If I put the thing in a truck next to Washington Square Park, is that "built-up"? Prospect Park? Next to the water? Etc etc. And suddenly you have a secondary corpus of law―case law, which is literally law that defines what the law is (I would call it meta-law)―much of which is not accessible to the public without paying for specialized databases etc.*
Second, you are expected to follow an enormous, unmanageable corpus of law without having any idea of what it means. I should clarify that I am **not making a literalist/constitutionalist claim here.** (I'm a social scientist, anyway.) This is especially bad when the statutes include imprisonment, but since I'm limiting myself to what's in front of me: The idea that I should be responsible for knowing exactly what "built-up" means with no training is, from a critical social-science perspective, frankly preposterous. I don't even know if "built-up" has a strict legal definition, nor how to find that out, much less what it might be. I have an advanced degree. And that's true of any contentious term.
The issue here is precisely this: a law that says anything is just a technology for those who are born into privilege to maintain that privilege, for the powerful to maintain power. That these "dead-letter laws" remain on the books is part of the operation of that technology. They're not errors.
Lest this be unremittingly anarchistic, I might point out that *law need not be statute,* as it is in the U.S. most of the time. To say to, say, high school kids, hey, here's the 2016 book of plain-text Law of the State of New York or Law of Illinois or Law of California or whatever, and accept that they (we) are legally responsible for cutting out whatever behavior is against statute but not against a reasonable understanding of what the law says―that would be an enormous improvement. Let statute mark exactly what an hour is for minimum wage (does 1 hour and 1 minute = one hour's pay? does 59 minutes?), let it define "built-up," let it say what rights the state recognizes and then delegate how the state decides to implement them. In short, let law actually be the realm of social agonism/contention, not statute (which we've seen is easily perverted, by interests that simply have better and more inventive lawyers).
Disaggregating law and statute wouldn't solve the fundamental interpretation issue, but it certainly might assuage some of the worst of it. (It would also mean that a lot more non-lawyers could be technically proficient legislators, but I digress.)
*I am speaking generally here, not specifically about NY/NYC, of which I have no idea about access.
posted by migrantology at 11:32 AM on June 29, 2016 [4 favorites]
First, you are expected to follow an enormous corpus of law without having any training of where it is, what it says, what applies to you and how to find out whether something is legal. For instance, as a tenant, do NY's "Housing Maintenance Codes" apply to individuals or just to building owners? Likewise, "no person shall keep a live rooster, duck, goose or turkey in a built-up portion of the City" seems clear until you start to ask: what are the built-up portions of the city? If I put the thing in a truck next to Washington Square Park, is that "built-up"? Prospect Park? Next to the water? Etc etc. And suddenly you have a secondary corpus of law―case law, which is literally law that defines what the law is (I would call it meta-law)―much of which is not accessible to the public without paying for specialized databases etc.*
Second, you are expected to follow an enormous, unmanageable corpus of law without having any idea of what it means. I should clarify that I am **not making a literalist/constitutionalist claim here.** (I'm a social scientist, anyway.) This is especially bad when the statutes include imprisonment, but since I'm limiting myself to what's in front of me: The idea that I should be responsible for knowing exactly what "built-up" means with no training is, from a critical social-science perspective, frankly preposterous. I don't even know if "built-up" has a strict legal definition, nor how to find that out, much less what it might be. I have an advanced degree. And that's true of any contentious term.
The issue here is precisely this: a law that says anything is just a technology for those who are born into privilege to maintain that privilege, for the powerful to maintain power. That these "dead-letter laws" remain on the books is part of the operation of that technology. They're not errors.
Lest this be unremittingly anarchistic, I might point out that *law need not be statute,* as it is in the U.S. most of the time. To say to, say, high school kids, hey, here's the 2016 book of plain-text Law of the State of New York or Law of Illinois or Law of California or whatever, and accept that they (we) are legally responsible for cutting out whatever behavior is against statute but not against a reasonable understanding of what the law says―that would be an enormous improvement. Let statute mark exactly what an hour is for minimum wage (does 1 hour and 1 minute = one hour's pay? does 59 minutes?), let it define "built-up," let it say what rights the state recognizes and then delegate how the state decides to implement them. In short, let law actually be the realm of social agonism/contention, not statute (which we've seen is easily perverted, by interests that simply have better and more inventive lawyers).
Disaggregating law and statute wouldn't solve the fundamental interpretation issue, but it certainly might assuage some of the worst of it. (It would also mean that a lot more non-lawyers could be technically proficient legislators, but I digress.)
*I am speaking generally here, not specifically about NY/NYC, of which I have no idea about access.
posted by migrantology at 11:32 AM on June 29, 2016 [4 favorites]
Let statute mark exactly what an hour is for minimum wage (does 1 hour and 1 minute = one hour's pay? does 59 minutes?), let it define "built-up," let it say what rights the state recognizes and then delegate how the state decides to implement them. In short, let law actually be the realm of social agonism/contention, not statute (which we've seen is easily perverted, by interests that simply have better and more inventive lawyers).
migrantology
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. You want statutues but also not statutes? A statute is just a written law. It's unclear what you're objecting to here.
Please don't take this as an attack, but it sounds like you don't have much familiarity with how the law is written or functions. A well-written law code will and does have all the things you're asking for (definitions section, processes for implementation, etc.) One problem with popular articles like these is that you're looking at these laws in isolation. To use your example of "built-up", usually statutes don't contain those kinds of definitions in their own text. There will be a definitions section at the beginning of the relevant section of the law code containing the statute, in this case the NYC Health Code, that should define used terms.
Of course that's when you're dealing with well-written legislation. Legislatures are, after all, merely human, and can write laws badly, neglect to provide definitions, assume reference to common law definitions, etc.
Another problem with looking at old laws is that over time they become separated from the circumstances that led to their creation, so that a law that had a valid reason to exist in 1832 may seem utterly bizarre and pointless in 2016.
That's not to say things are perfect and there's no need for reform. There are efforts at modernization of the law underway all over the world. There are also efforts to prune these old and obsolete laws from the code. New York itself has a State Law Revision Commission for this purpose, for example. The Law Commission for England and Wales does this kind of work for the UK, on a body of law far older and more complex than that of the US, and has published an amusing list of old and strange laws still in effect there.
posted by Sangermaine at 11:57 AM on June 29, 2016 [3 favorites]
migrantology
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. You want statutues but also not statutes? A statute is just a written law. It's unclear what you're objecting to here.
Please don't take this as an attack, but it sounds like you don't have much familiarity with how the law is written or functions. A well-written law code will and does have all the things you're asking for (definitions section, processes for implementation, etc.) One problem with popular articles like these is that you're looking at these laws in isolation. To use your example of "built-up", usually statutes don't contain those kinds of definitions in their own text. There will be a definitions section at the beginning of the relevant section of the law code containing the statute, in this case the NYC Health Code, that should define used terms.
Of course that's when you're dealing with well-written legislation. Legislatures are, after all, merely human, and can write laws badly, neglect to provide definitions, assume reference to common law definitions, etc.
Another problem with looking at old laws is that over time they become separated from the circumstances that led to their creation, so that a law that had a valid reason to exist in 1832 may seem utterly bizarre and pointless in 2016.
That's not to say things are perfect and there's no need for reform. There are efforts at modernization of the law underway all over the world. There are also efforts to prune these old and obsolete laws from the code. New York itself has a State Law Revision Commission for this purpose, for example. The Law Commission for England and Wales does this kind of work for the UK, on a body of law far older and more complex than that of the US, and has published an amusing list of old and strange laws still in effect there.
posted by Sangermaine at 11:57 AM on June 29, 2016 [3 favorites]
Fell on the right side of rooster law: I raised two hens in Manhattan, one of whom was an alley chicken. why the hell are hens legal they are just about as noisy as roosters frankly, this law is chicken-sexist
posted by gusandrews at 12:02 PM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by gusandrews at 12:02 PM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Nope, Sangermaine, just to give you a very brief response, I'm sorry that my vocabulary is different from yours but that's not "lack of familiarity."
Law is not the same as statute in much of the rest of the world, especially in Latin America. Law is the thing that is written by the people ("Washington DC will have no buildings higher than 8 storeys"), and statute ("an 8-storey building may be of height X") is made by professional bureaucrats who are specifically charged with putting it into practice. In Mexico, for instance, you can bring a challenge to the law when they deviate too much. It's significantly less anti-democratic, tbh.
A law is only a tool of the powerful if even highly educated people can't know where to find it, whether it applies to them, or on a basic level what it means.
posted by migrantology at 12:03 PM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Law is not the same as statute in much of the rest of the world, especially in Latin America. Law is the thing that is written by the people ("Washington DC will have no buildings higher than 8 storeys"), and statute ("an 8-storey building may be of height X") is made by professional bureaucrats who are specifically charged with putting it into practice. In Mexico, for instance, you can bring a challenge to the law when they deviate too much. It's significantly less anti-democratic, tbh.
A law is only a tool of the powerful if even highly educated people can't know where to find it, whether it applies to them, or on a basic level what it means.
posted by migrantology at 12:03 PM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
You're diving into the difference civil and common law, then, a topic over which oceans of ink have been spilled.
In that case, your premise is simply flawed. Civil law systems can be and are tools of power and repression just as much as common law system.
In Mexico, for instance, you can bring a challenge to the law when they deviate too much. It's significantly less anti-democratic, tbh.
This can be done in the US as well. Laws are challenged all the time.
I suspect you are from a civil law country and so your system just feels right. It's the same fo me: being from a common law system, civil law systems seem rigid and oppressive to me, without the ability for bottom-up change the common law offers.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:33 PM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
In that case, your premise is simply flawed. Civil law systems can be and are tools of power and repression just as much as common law system.
In Mexico, for instance, you can bring a challenge to the law when they deviate too much. It's significantly less anti-democratic, tbh.
This can be done in the US as well. Laws are challenged all the time.
I suspect you are from a civil law country and so your system just feels right. It's the same fo me: being from a common law system, civil law systems seem rigid and oppressive to me, without the ability for bottom-up change the common law offers.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:33 PM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Dying to know the 'case' that set the precedent for the window puppetry law. Must've been a doozy. They should prosecute all cases using Officer Brendan O'Smarty
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 3:05 PM on June 29, 2016
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 3:05 PM on June 29, 2016
I don't think it's that outrageous to say that these "wacky outdated laws" that are presented as jokes are actually a symptom of a bad system. People are expected to stay within the lines but you need an advanced degree to know exactly what those lines are.
Also it's kind of unfair to assume someone doesn't know what they're talking about just because you aren't following their point or don't agree with it.
posted by bleep at 8:23 PM on June 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
Also it's kind of unfair to assume someone doesn't know what they're talking about just because you aren't following their point or don't agree with it.
posted by bleep at 8:23 PM on June 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
GospelofWesleyWillis: "Dying to know the 'case' that set the precedent for the window puppetry law. Must've been a doozy."
Totally blue-sky guessing, but possibilities:
* Public performances used to be zoned to specific areas, and people skirted the law by putting on performances from their homes from windows
* Public performances used to involve fees/taxes, which people avoided by putting on informal performances from their homes from windows
* It became common for performers to put on shows their own homes (no need to rent a performance space), and shows with large draws ended up blocking sidewalks and streets
I would guess it wasn't a single performance, but a trend (though a single performance could have been the one that broke the camel's back and led to a law being drafted).
posted by Bugbread at 1:31 AM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
Totally blue-sky guessing, but possibilities:
* Public performances used to be zoned to specific areas, and people skirted the law by putting on performances from their homes from windows
* Public performances used to involve fees/taxes, which people avoided by putting on informal performances from their homes from windows
* It became common for performers to put on shows their own homes (no need to rent a performance space), and shows with large draws ended up blocking sidewalks and streets
I would guess it wasn't a single performance, but a trend (though a single performance could have been the one that broke the camel's back and led to a law being drafted).
posted by Bugbread at 1:31 AM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
My guess on the puppetry thing is dangerous crowding on sidewalks.
But then, NYC is still the city which has laws on the books saying a venue can be shut down if people are dancing in it and the venue has no permit for that -- a Prohibition-era law -- so anything seems possible. Including Giuliani having a personal grudge against puppetry
posted by gusandrews at 1:03 AM on July 1, 2016
But then, NYC is still the city which has laws on the books saying a venue can be shut down if people are dancing in it and the venue has no permit for that -- a Prohibition-era law -- so anything seems possible. Including Giuliani having a personal grudge against puppetry
posted by gusandrews at 1:03 AM on July 1, 2016
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