Strange laws on the books in El Dorado

By By Joan Hershberger, El Dorado News-Times

EL DORADO — City Clerk Anthony McKinnon, in addition to his duties preparing minutes of City Council meetings, keeps track of all the ordinances the city has passed.

“Some are weird,” McKinnon said.

The city’s records include copies of all the ordinances passed, including handwritten versions of laws approved in the late 19th century, all the way back to 1870.

McKinnon listed several ordinances that especially intrigued him from past years.

In 1973, the city council required that caskets be at least 24 inches below ground. “This is still on the books, as are most of the rulings, in one form or another. Some have become state or federal laws,” he said.

In 1954, the city deemed it illegal to hitchhike within the city limits. “They must have had a crime wave in 1954 because that year they passed 60 ordinances, including that all trucks and tractors must have rubber tires. I thought they all always did have rubber tires,” McKinnon said.

Other 1954 laws made it illegal to turn off the lights of a car to avoid arrest and fined a driver $50 for driving through a gas station to avoid a light. “This is now a state law,” McKinnon said.

The city required that cars must have mufflers or be fined $75. “Earlier models such as my grandfather’s Model T did not have a muffler,” he said. Drivers could incur a $100 fine if they broke the city ordinance that required all vehicles to have brakes.

“There is an ordinance that a train on the railroad tracks can not block the street for more than five minutes,” McKinnon said. “It is OK as long as the train is moving.”

But he noted that, “this happens all the time on East Main.”

“Roller skating on the streets was prohibited back then. I did not know that there was a roller skating problem,” he mused.

In 1922, the city proved to be far ahead in its thinking when it forbade smoking in the theaters, McKinnon noted. Now smoking is prohibited by state law in all public facilities.

After the start of World War I, in 1916, the city mandated that all Communists had to register with the city police. This later became a state law that the Supreme Court struck down in 1990.

In 2002, an incident at the Lion Golf Course resulted in a law prohibiting persons from driving their private vehicles on the golf course.

Animals caught the council’s attention in 1945 with a prohibition against stock pens in the city, except those used at the Union County Fair.

The council decided in 1946 that individuals could possess poisonous snakes and pythons, but forbade ownership of a bear or cougar.

Palm reader Mother Carrie was one of four such businesses operating in 1957 when the city passed a law that forbade the practice, with exceptions for those already maintaining such businesses. Three of the four businesses immediately closed. However, Mother Carrie stayed open at one location or another in the city until the 1980s, when she died.

“The practice is also illegal in Little Rock, but it is OK in Hot Springs and Pine Bluff,” McKinnon said.

The City Council of 1914 passed a measure that imposed a fine of $50 on anyone caught begging without a permit. Of course, if they needed to beg, the individual might not have been able to afford the permit, let alone the fine, McKinnon said.

In 1976, the city and state removed from their books so-called “blue laws” that had prohibited certain business practices for moral reasons or to enforce the observance of Sunday as a day of rest.

In 1954, the city forbade driving on the sidewalk.

El Dorado initiated its own anti-littering law in 1958 with a $100 fine.

In 1912, the city imposed a $100 fine for cohabitation. The Supreme Court struck that measure down in 1960.

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Comments on Strange laws on the books in El Dorado

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larrygenecarter_aol-com says...

This guy must not be much on history. tractors and some large trucks had metal rims with steel lugs on the in the early 1900's. When I was a young man in my father's welding business, we used to cut the spokes loose from the metal rim and weld a rim on that a rubber tire could be mounted on.

November 22, 2009 at 6:46 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

olearky says...

It had to be a slow rolling vehicle. No way could you dead center the hub !!

November 22, 2009 at 8:24 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

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