While assault is naturally illegal everywhere, this highly specific town ordinance was allegedly drafted after a disgruntled tenant chomped down on their property owner during a rent dispute. The town decided to make it unequivocally clear that utilizing your teeth in a housing disagreement was unacceptable. Even in the face of steep rent hikes, tenants must keep their pearly whites to themselves.
Sanford decided that combining slippery tile floors, cramped bathroom stalls, and wheels attached to your feet was a recipe for disaster. This hyper-specific ordinance was likely passed after an unfortunate incident involving a skater who lost their balance at the urinal. To protect the dignity and safety of all restroom patrons, skates must be removed at the door.
This bizarrely specific law dates back to a time when mischievous young men thought it was highly amusing to flirt with women by accosting them with cleaning supplies. The city of Portland struck back against this Victorian-era street harassment by banning the use of feather dusters for unwanted chin-tickling. It remains a fascinating glimpse into the polite, yet strange, courtship rituals of the past.
In a state that experiences long and brutal winters, leaving holiday lights up might seem like a nice way to beat the seasonal depression. However, an old regulatory concept dictates that festive decorations become a public nuisance if left up well into the new year. It was originally intended to keep neighborhoods looking tidy and to prevent aging electrical wires from becoming fire hazards.
In the state's capital, strolling the sidewalks while bowing a fiddle was once considered a massive distraction to horse-drawn carriages and early automobiles. The city implemented this ordinance to curb street performers from creating traffic jams and noise complaints. If you want to practice your concerto, you will have to do it from the comfort of a stationary position.
While not a literal criminal statute enforced by police, a legendary 1939 bill introduced in the Maine legislature sought to make adding tomatoes to clam chowder an offense against the state. The culinary purity law was a direct attack on Manhattan-style chowder, affirming that true New England chowder must only be made with a cream or milk base. Though the bill was largely a humorous PR stunt, natives still consider tomatoes in chowder a deep moral failing.
To protect the state's most lucrative marine resource, lobsters can only be harvested using traditional, regulated traps. This law was implemented to prevent overfishing by divers and to ensure that undersized or egg-bearing females can be safely identified and returned to the ocean. Plus, sticking your bare hands into a rocky crevice to grab a heavily armored crustacean is generally a terrible idea anyway.
During the rampant spread of tuberculosis and the 1918 influenza pandemic, cities took extreme, desperate measures to maintain public hygiene. Waterville supposedly passed this ordinance to stop people from dispersing germs into the open air by blowing their noses aggressively on the street. While nobody is going to arrest you for using a Kleenex today, it remains on the books as an artifact of historic health panics.
Although it defies all logic and self-preservation, lawmakers felt the need to explicitly forbid exiting a plane mid-air unless it is an emergency or part of a sanctioned parachute jump. The rule was drafted during the early days of aviation to prevent daredevils and stuntmen from endangering people on the ground. Today, it stands as a hilarious reminder that some laws only exist because someone, somewhere, actually tried it.
Maine has a very restrictive list of exotic animals that are permitted to be kept as household pets, and the leathery armadillo didn't make the cut. The prohibition exists primarily to prevent the introduction of foreign diseases, as armadillos are known carriers of leprosy. Given that they belong in warm, southern climates anyway, a Maine winter would not be pleasant for an armadillo.
Many New England towns once had bizarre blue laws regulating Sunday indulgences, and Lewiston's contribution was an ordinance against ambulatory dessert consumption. The law was allegedly meant to maintain the solemnity of the Sabbath, as sticky-faced citizens wandering the avenues enjoying a cone were deemed entirely too frivolous for the Lord's Day. Today, you can stroll and snack without fear of divine or legal retribution.
Given Maine's massive moose population and deep-rooted hunting culture, game wardens had to crack down on lazy hunters taking potshots from their pickup trucks. The law ensures ethical hunting practices, known as fair chase, and protects passengers and passing motorists from stray bullets. If you want to bag a moose, you have to get out of the car and brave the deep woods like everyone else.
While dogs are common companions on Maine's beautiful coastlines, swine are expressly forbidden from enjoying the sandy shores of Freeport. This agricultural ordinance was meant to keep livestock separated from public recreation areas to maintain sanitation and avoid disruptive animal encounters. Thus, your pot-bellied pig will have to settle for splashing in a backyard mud puddle instead.
Classified under a broader ordinance regarding the throwing of missiles or projectiles, launching a snowball at your friend across a public street is technically a misdemeanor in Bangor. Lawmakers were less concerned with winter joy and more worried about broken windows, spooked horses, and distracted drivers. Residents who want a friendly winter skirmish must retreat to private property.
In the 1940s and 50s, shoe stores utilized fluoroscopes—devices that blasted X-rays through customers' feet so they could see the bones inside their new shoes. As the dangers of extreme radiation exposure became obvious, Maine banned these novelty machines to stop businesses from giving their customers cancer in the name of a perfect fit. The ban was a crucial step in early consumer radiation protection.
In an effort to protect pedestrians from out-of-control youths on eight wheels, Biddeford banned the act of roller skating on public walking paths. The ordinance was passed during the roller-skating craze of the mid-20th century, when sidewalks were heavily congested with downtown shoppers. Today, the rule technically still stands, forcing skaters to find smoother and more legal pastures.
Maine is one of several states that still strictly enforces auto-dealership blue laws, which prohibit the sale of cars and RVs on Sundays. Originally rooted in religious traditions to observe a day of rest, the law is heavily supported today by dealership owners who want a guaranteed day off without losing business to competitors. You can look at the cars on the lot, but the sales office must remain firmly locked.
To prevent catastrophic damage to expensive wooden floors and public linoleum, older statutes restrict patrons from clomping into municipal buildings while wearing metal cleats. Before soft-spiked golf shoes became the industry norm, golfers fresh off the 18th hole frequently ruined local tavern and courthouse floors. You must change into sensible footwear before paying your property taxes.
Maine takes its charitable gaming laws incredibly seriously to prevent illicit, unregulated gambling rings from operating under the guise of community fundraisers. The state strictly caps the number of bingo games a single venue can run in a session and limits the total prize payouts. If a fiery game of bingo gets too intense, the state will aggressively step in to cool the daubers down.
Maine fiercely protects the sanctity and peacefulness of its graveyards by making it a crime to post billboards or commercial signs on cemetery fences or tombstones. Early 20th-century advertisers were known to aggressively place posters wherever there was open real estate, prompting the state to step in. The dead, it turns out, are a terrible demographic for consumer goods anyway.