Some of the strangest laws in Louisiana are not internet myths but working statutes you can look up in the state’s revised code. Louisiana’s legal system traces back to French and Spanish colonial rule rather than English common law, and that history produced a body of statutes you won’t find anywhere else: a separate crime for stealing crawfish, a prison sentence for wearing a mask in public, a dedicated ban on bear wrestling, and a rule that says if a coconut hits you at a parade, that’s on you.
Stealing Crawfish Is Its Own Criminal Offense
Louisiana doesn’t lump crawfish theft in with ordinary stealing. The state carved out a separate offense for taking someone else’s crawfish, or the proceeds from selling them, without the owner’s consent or through fraud, with the intent to deprive the owner permanently.
Penalties scale with the amount taken. Theft of $1,500 or more carries up to ten years in prison, with or without hard labor, a fine up to $3,000, or both. Between $500 and $1,499, the maximum is five years and a $2,000 fine. Under $500, you’re looking at up to six months in jail and a $500 fine, but a repeat offender at that lowest tier faces the same ten-year ceiling as a first-time thief in the top bracket.1Justia Law. Louisiana Code 14:67.5 – Theft of Crawfish; Penalty
For a state where crawfish farming generates hundreds of millions of dollars a year, a dedicated statute makes economic sense. On paper it still reads like a punchline.
Ordering an Unwanted Pizza to Someone’s House Is a Crime
Louisiana has a standalone statute making it illegal to order food, merchandise, or services delivered to another person for the purpose of harassing them. Three conditions must all be true: the recipient didn’t authorize the order and doesn’t live with you (and it isn’t a gift), the recipient is stuck paying for the delivery or returning the items at their own expense, and you placed the order intending to annoy or harass. If the recipient actually uses the item, that counts as an affirmative defense.
A violation carries up to $500 in fines or six months in jail, and a court can order restitution on top of the criminal penalty.2Justia Law. Louisiana Code 14:68.6 – Unauthorized Ordering of Goods or Services A surprise birthday cake for a friend won’t land you in trouble. Thirty pizzas to a feuding ex is exactly the conduct the statute was written to catch.
Wearing a Mask in Public Can Mean Prison Time
Louisiana bans wearing masks, hoods, or any facial disguise designed to conceal your identity in a public place or anywhere visible from a public place. The penalty runs from six months to three years in prison, one of the harshest anti-masking statutes in the country.3Justia Law. Louisiana Code 14:313 – Wearing of Masks, Hoods, or Other Facial Disguises in Public Places Prohibited; Penalty; Exceptions
The law was aimed at Ku Klux Klan hoods and has survived through a growing list of exceptions:
- Children on Halloween, though convicted sex offenders are explicitly barred from masking on Halloween or any other holiday.
- Carnival parades, masquerade balls, and public masking during Mardi Gras, as long as organizers obtain a written permit from the mayor or parish sheriff in advance.
- Head coverings and veils worn for religious beliefs or customs.
- Motorcycle riders and passengers wearing helmets.
- Masks worn for medical purposes.
The Mardi Gras permit requirement is the detail most people miss. A general public proclamation by the mayor or sheriff functions as a blanket permit, which is how citywide celebrations operate. A private masquerade ball without that authorization technically falls outside the exception.4Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code 14:313 – Wearing of Masks, Hoods, or Other Facial Disguises in Public Places Prohibited
Bear Wrestling Has Its Own Statute
Louisiana devotes an entire section of its criminal code to bear wrestling. Promoting a match, working for someone who runs one, selling tickets, or purchasing or training a bear for that purpose are all criminal acts. The statute defines a “bear wrestling match” as any contest between a person and a bear involving fighting or physical altercation. A conviction carries up to $500 in fines, six months in jail, or both.5Justia Law. Louisiana Code 14:102.10 – Bear Wrestling; Penalty
This wasn’t a hypothetical when it was written. Traveling shows across parts of the South would bring a muzzled bear and invite audience members to wrestle it for a prize. The bear wrestling statute sits alongside Louisiana’s broader animal cruelty laws, which impose up to six months and $1,000 for simple cruelty on a first offense and a mandatory minimum of one year in prison and fines between $5,000 and $25,000 on a second conviction.6Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code 14:102.1 – Cruelty to Animals; Simple and Aggravated
Getting Hit at a Mardi Gras Parade Is Legally Your Problem
If a string of beads catches you in the eye at a Mardi Gras parade, Louisiana law says you accepted that risk when you showed up. The statute provides that anyone attending or participating in an organized float parade between 6:00 a.m. and midnight assumes the risk of being struck by thrown objects. The law names the projectiles by tradition: beads, cups, coconuts, and doubloons.7Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code 9:2796 – Liability of Carnival Organizations
The protection isn’t absolute. A krewe can still be held liable for “deliberate and wanton” acts or gross negligence. But ordinary parade throwing, including the heavy coconuts hurled by the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, sits inside the shield. The statute essentially codified what anyone who has stood on a New Orleans sidewalk in February already knows.
You Might Not Be Able to Disinherit Your Own Children
Most states let you leave your estate to whoever you want. Louisiana doesn’t. The state’s forced heirship doctrine, another artifact of its civil law roots, protects certain children from being cut out of a will. Descendants who are 23 or younger at the time of a parent’s death, or who have a permanent physical or mental disability preventing them from managing their own affairs, qualify as forced heirs. They cannot be disinherited without legally recognized just cause.
How much of your estate you can give away freely depends on how many forced heirs you have. One forced heir leaves three-quarters of the estate freely disposable. Two or more forced heirs drops that to one-half. No conditions or burdens may be placed on a forced heir’s portion except those specifically authorized by law, such as a usufruct for a surviving spouse. People moving to Louisiana from other states regularly discover this rule only when they sit down to write a will.
Sunday Alcohol Sales Change Every Time You Cross a Parish Line
Whether you can buy alcohol on a Sunday in Louisiana depends on which parish you’re standing in. The state grants local governments authority to set alcohol sale hours, and individual parishes can hold referendums to restrict or expand Sunday sales. Some parishes sell around the clock, others delay Sunday sales until noon, and a handful of dry parishes ban Sunday package sales entirely while still letting restaurants pour drinks with food after a certain hour.
A parish can repeal its ban by ordinance, but tightening restrictions typically requires a local vote. Only 25 signatures are needed to force a parish-wide alcohol referendum, which is why these rules keep shifting as communities change their minds.
Yard Sales Are Capped by Local Ordinance
Several Louisiana parishes limit how many garage sales a household can hold each year. Calcasieu Parish caps residents at three sales per location per calendar year, and municipalities like Jonesboro use the same three-per-year ceiling. The idea is to stop residents from running what amounts to an unlicensed retail operation out of a driveway. Specific numbers, signage rules, and permit requirements vary by parish and municipality, so a quick call to local government before posting signs is the easiest way to avoid a citation.
Cursing at Someone in Public Is Technically Illegal
Louisiana’s disturbing the peace statute makes it an offense to address “offensive, derisive, or annoying words” to someone in a street or public place, to call someone by an offensive name, or to make noise in someone’s presence intending to annoy or prevent them from going about their business.8Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code 14:103 – Disturbing the Peace
The statute doesn’t specifically ban profanity, but “offensive or derisive” language aimed at a specific person on a public street falls squarely within its text. In practice, enforcement generally requires conduct beyond rudeness, since the law also requires the behavior to foreseeably disturb or alarm the public. The breadth of the language is still the kind of thing that makes constitutional lawyers nervous.
The Louisiana Laws That Aren’t Actually Louisiana Laws
Lists of “crazy Louisiana laws” routinely claim it’s illegal to tie a cow to a fire hydrant or that bathtubs must be kept indoors. Neither traces back to any verifiable Louisiana statute or local ordinance. The fire hydrant story appears to have grown out of a generic Michigan law against obstructing hydrants, which got exaggerated into a Louisiana version involving cows (and in some tellings, alligators). The bathtub claim follows a similar pattern, with no Louisiana building code, plumbing code, or local ordinance containing language about keeping bathtubs out of public view.
Louisiana has enough genuinely strange laws on the books that it doesn’t need invented ones. Crawfish theft penalties that rival some felony assault sentences, a prison term for wearing the wrong mask on the wrong day, and a statute that says a coconut to the head is part of the deal are stranger than anything the internet has made up.