Weird Laws in West Virginia

While West Virginia famously passed a law allowing residents to take home roadkill for dinner, you can't just scoop up a deer without paperwork. You must legally report the animal and possess the correct license within 24 hours. This ensures wildlife management officials can track animal populations and deter intentional vehicular hunting.

The town of Alderson passed an ordinance explicitly forbidding residents from parading large apex predators around town. One can only assume an eccentric resident with an exotic pet inspired the city council to ban big cats on Main Street.

In the interest of keeping the congregation comfortable and focused on the sermon rather than pungent odors, Bluefield allegedly banned the consumption of strong-smelling root vegetables on Sunday mornings. Your breath must be fresh if you want to sit in the pews.

Believing that the house of worship should be a place of utmost solemnity, a local ordinance forbade ministers from sprinkling humor into their sermons. Stand-up comedy and spiritual salvation were deemed strictly incompatible activities.

Under a very old but unrepealed state statute, anyone who arrives at the public square and lets loose a string of profanities can be fined $1 for each curse word. Fortunately for frustrated drivers and stubbed toes, this Victorian-era morality law is almost never enforced today.

In a law likely left over from the days of traveling circuses, Charleston requires that if you do happen to park your elephant on a city street, you still have to deposit coins in the meter. Failing to pay the hourly toll for your pachyderm will result in a standard parking ticket.

Dating back to the days of heavy, horse-drawn fire carriages, this ordinance was meant to prevent the wagons from barreling out of control and crushing pedestrians. The law technically remained on the books long after motorized, high-speed fire trucks became the norm.

A remnant of strict puritanical modesty standards, this municipal ordinance sought to curb 'lewd' behavior and keep the town's youth respectable. A prolonged wink or suggestive nod could technically land a person in trouble with the local authorities.

During the early 20th century, the dairy industry heavily lobbied against margarine, viewing it as a threat to butter. To make margarine look unappetizing or brand it as fake, some proposed forcing it to be dyed pink, prompting counter-laws like this one to protect consumers from bizarrely colored spreads.

Back in the day, hunters would send trained ferrets down into burrows to flush out rabbits and other small game. Lawmakers eventually deemed this unsportsmanlike and entirely banned the practice. Your pet ferret must stay at home during hunting season.

Rooted in 19th-century efforts to stop politicians from settling legislative debates with pistols, the state constitution permanently disqualifies anyone who has sent, accepted, or carried a challenge to fight a duel. While modern political debates are just as heated, no one is breaking out the flintlocks anymore.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, women's fashion featured enormous, elaborately decorated hats. Theatergoers were so frustrated by obstructed views that lawmakers stepped in, making it an actual crime to refuse to remove your giant hat during a show.

An old moral statute technically forbids unmarried couples from cohabiting in a manner deemed scandalous by 19th-century standards. While completely superseded by modern civil rights and privacy laws, the text remains buried deep within the state's crimes against morality code.

Stemming from old 'blue laws' designed to keep the Sabbath holy, hunting on Sundays was completely illegal for over a century. Recent amendments finally allowed it, but only if you have a literal permission slip from the landowner in your pocket.

To combat vagrancy and ensure that waiting rooms were kept available for ticket-holding passengers, Clarksburg outlawed snoozing in the depot. If you have a long layover, you must find a way to keep your eyes open until the train arrives.

Originally passed in the 20th century to combat secret societies and the Ku Klux Klan, this law makes it a misdemeanor for adults to conceal their identity in public. Exceptions were eventually carved out for Halloween, theatrical productions, and winter weather.

To ensure that open-air religious revivals and camp meetings remained peaceful and pious, the state banned the sale of intoxicating liquors anywhere near them. Saloon owners and bootleggers had to set up shop a strict distance away from the singing and preaching.

As technology advanced, hunters started using unmanned aerial vehicles to easily spot deer and other game from the sky. West Virginia lawmakers quickly stepped in, deciding that using flying robots fundamentally violated the spirit of 'fair chase' in the woods.

During the tuberculosis outbreaks of the early 1900s, many cities cracked down on public spitting to prevent the spread of the deadly disease. Morgantown's city code still officially outlaws expectorating on the pavement, though it's rarely cited today unless someone is causing a true nuisance.

West Virginia enacted the 'Soft Drinks Tax Act' in 1951 to fund the state's medical, dental, and nursing schools. It slaps a 1-cent tax on every 16.9 ounces of bottled soda, making it one of the oldest continuing 'sugar taxes' in the United States.