The dumb laws in Pennsylvania that are still on the books include a criminal ban on fortune telling, a prohibition on car dealerships selling vehicles on Sundays, a law against dyeing baby chicks for Easter, and a disorderly conduct statute that technically criminalizes “obscene language.” Some of the most famous entries on these lists have actually been repealed in the last decade, and a surprising number of the quirky ordinances that circulate online were never real to begin with.
Fortune Telling Is a Misdemeanor
Charging money to predict someone’s future is a third-degree misdemeanor in Pennsylvania. The statute sweeps in palm reading, consulting the stars, casting spells, preparing love potions, claiming the power to recover stolen property, and advertising any of these services by sign or newspaper.1Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 18 7104 – Fortune Telling A conviction carries up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $2,000.2Pennsylvania Code and Bulletin. 101 Pa Code 15.66 – Penalties for Offenses
The law comes from an era when legislators saw fortune tellers as con artists preying on the gullible. It is rarely enforced today, and modern courts have begun questioning whether a content-based speech restriction like this can survive First Amendment scrutiny. The statute remains in force in the meantime.
Profanity Under the Disorderly Conduct Statute
Pennsylvania’s disorderly conduct statute lists “obscene language” and “obscene gestures” alongside fighting and unreasonable noise. The offense is usually a summary violation, and it climbs to a third-degree misdemeanor if the person intended serious disruption or ignored warnings.3Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 18 5503 – Disorderly Conduct
The provision was once used aggressively. State troopers issued more than 700 disorderly conduct citations in a single year for swearing alone. After an ACLU challenge, the Pennsylvania State Police agreed to retrain officers and clarify that “obscene” does not cover ordinary profanity or rude gestures. Courts have consistently held that cursing at a police officer is protected speech unless it rises to fighting words likely to provoke immediate violence. The statute is still on the books; its teeth, when it comes to everyday swearing, are largely gone.
Disrupting a Meeting or Procession
Intentionally interrupting any lawful meeting, procession, or gathering is a third-degree misdemeanor in Pennsylvania.4Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 18 5508 – Disrupting Meetings and Processions The language is broad enough to reach everything from heckling a township supervisor to disrupting a parade. What makes this one strange isn’t the concept, which is reasonable, but the grading: a year in jail is theoretically available for interrupting a book club. Prosecutors must prove intent to prevent or disrupt, which limits abuse, but the sweep of the statute is wide.2Pennsylvania Code and Bulletin. 101 Pa Code 15.66 – Penalties for Offenses
No Car Sales on Sunday
Dealing in new or used motor vehicles on Sunday is a summary offense. The statute reaches anyone “in the business of buying, selling, exchanging, trading, or otherwise dealing” in vehicles or trailers, and a repeat offender convicted twice within a year faces a fine of up to $200.5Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 18 7365 – Trading in Motor Vehicles and Trailers
The real quirks are the exceptions. Licensed motorcycle dealers can sell on Sundays. Manufactured housing dealers can close sales on Sundays. Recreational vehicle shows can finalize contracts on Sundays. A standard car dealership that lets a customer sign paperwork on Sunday afternoon is committing a crime. The $200 fine is not what keeps dealers in line. The state licensing board can reprimand, suspend, or revoke a dealer’s license for a Sunday violation, and that is the real enforcement mechanism.6Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 63 PS 818.318 – Grounds for Disciplinary Proceedings
Dealing in Infant Children
Trading, bartering, buying, selling, or “dealing in” infant children is a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.7Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 18 4305 – Dealing in Infant Children The phrasing sounds absurd, which is why it ends up on these lists. The purpose is serious: the statute targets black-market adoptions and trafficking. The fact that it had to be written at all says more about history than about legislative overreach.
Dyeing Baby Chicks and Rabbits
It is illegal in Pennsylvania to dye, stain, or artificially color baby chickens, ducklings, other fowl, or rabbits. The same statute prohibits selling fowl under one month old or rabbits under two months old as pets, toys, premiums, or novelties.8Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 18 5547 – Live Animals as Prizes Prohibited The goal is to stop impulse Easter purchases of pastel-dyed chicks that get abandoned a week later. Commercial breeders selling through proper facilities are exempt.
A persistent myth claims the law also requires merchants to sell these animals in batches of at least six. The actual statute contains no minimum quantity.
Dogs Must Be Confined at All Times
Under Pennsylvania’s Dog Law, an owner must keep their dog confined within their premises, secured by a collar and chain so it cannot stray, or under a person’s reasonable control at all times. The carve-outs are limited to lawful hunting, exhibitions, performance events, and field training. Letting a dog wander an unfenced front yard unattended technically violates the law. Enforcement runs through state dog wardens and local animal control rather than police, and it usually surfaces only after a complaint or incident.
The Livestock Trespass Procedure
When livestock wander onto someone else’s improved land, Pennsylvania has a process that reads as though constables still rode horses, because it was written when they did. The landowner notifies the township constable, who contacts the livestock owner. If the owner does not pay for damages, care, and the constable’s fee within four days, the constable alerts the magisterial district judge, who then appoints three “disinterested” local landowners to inspect and appraise the damage.9Justia Law. Pennsylvania Code 44 7159 – Trespassing Livestock This is a civil procedure rather than a criminal one, but the detailed cast of constables and appointed appraisers is one of the more charmingly antiquated corners of Pennsylvania law.
Famous Pennsylvania Laws That Were Recently Repealed
Two of the most commonly cited “dumb Pennsylvania laws” are no longer in force.
The Sunday Hunting Ban
For over a century, hunting on Sundays was illegal in Pennsylvania, a direct inheritance from colonial Sabbath laws. Until recently the state allowed only a narrow set of exceptions for specific species on designated Sundays. In July 2025, the governor signed Act 36, which fully repealed the ban and gave the Game Commission authority to regulate Sunday hunting.10Pennsylvania Game Commission. Sunday Hunting Days Set for 2025 Starting in September 2025, all Sundays within established hunting seasons are open, with the sole exception of migratory game bird seasons set through federal frameworks. Pennsylvania had been one of the last states with a blanket Sunday hunting prohibition.
Beer by the Case Only
Beer distributors in Pennsylvania were once required to sell beer only in case quantities, usually 24-packs or larger. If you wanted a six-pack, you had to go to a bar or restaurant with a different license. Act 166 of 2016 allowed distributors to sell six-packs, individual bottles, and growlers alongside full cases. The old restriction was a relic of the state’s famously tight liquor control system.
Popular “Pennsylvania Laws” That Were Never Real
Roughly half the entries on any internet list of weird Pennsylvania laws have no basis in actual statute or ordinance. A few of the most recycled:
Singing in the Bathtub in Philadelphia
No Philadelphia ordinance has ever prohibited singing in the bathtub. Legal researchers have searched the city code repeatedly and found nothing. The claim appears to have come from humor compilations in the early internet era.
Sleeping on an Outdoor Refrigerator in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh does have an ordinance about outdoor refrigerators, but it requires them to be locked and drained of refrigerant so children cannot be trapped inside. The “no sleeping on top” version is an embellishment attached to a sensible child-safety rule.
Sweeping Dirt Under a Rug
Various sources credit unspecified Pennsylvania boroughs with an ordinance banning the practice of sweeping dirt under a rug. No one has ever identified which municipality passed it or produced the text. The claim has appeared in newspaper humor columns since at least the mid-twentieth century, always without a citation.
Why Odd Laws Stay on the Books
Repealing a Pennsylvania statute requires the same process as passing one: a bill, committee hearings, floor votes, and the governor’s signature. For laws nobody enforces, there is little political incentive to spend that effort, and repeal bills often sit in committee indefinitely. The result is a code with provisions from every era of the Commonwealth’s history.
Courts have partial workarounds. Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court recognized the doctrine of desuetude as far back as 1825 in Wright v. Crane, acknowledging that the total disuse of a law over a long period is a rational objection to enforcing it. The void-for-vagueness doctrine offers another check, since criminal laws must define prohibited conduct clearly enough that an ordinary person understands what is banned. In practice, no prosecutor wants to test an embarrassing statute in court, and no defendant has reason to challenge a law nobody enforces, so the odd ones sit quietly in the code, technically alive but functionally inert.