Some of the weirdest South Carolina laws still on the books include a Sunday morning ban on selling items like lumber, luggage, and record players; a flat prohibition on anyone under 18 playing a pinball machine; a licensing scheme for traveling fortune-tellers; and a misdemeanor for using profane language within hearing distance of a school or church. None of these are being actively enforced in any serious way, but the text is right there in the code, and that alone makes them worth knowing about.
The Sunday Morning Retail Ban
South Carolina’s general Sunday statute makes it unlawful to work, conduct business, or sell goods before 1:30 p.m. on a Sunday. Local governments can push that opening time back to 10:00 a.m. by resolution.1South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code Title 53 Chapter 1 – Sundays The prohibition reaches both the seller and anyone they employ to do the selling.2South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code Title 53 Chapter 1 – Section 53-1-40
The oddity is in the lists. The code specifically names clothing and accessories (swimwear, hosiery, and undergarments excepted), housewares, tools, paint, hardware, lumber, musical instruments, televisions, record players, luggage, jewelry, and automobiles as items that cannot be sold Sunday morning. It then adds that absence from the list doesn’t make a sale legal. A separate list of exceptions carves out food, tobacco, newspapers, fuel, drugs, medical supplies, flowers, seeds, light bulbs, and vending machine sales.3South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code Title 53 Chapter 1 – Sundays – Section 53-1-50
A first violation runs $50 to $250, with repeats at $100 to $500, and each sale counts as its own offense.4South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code Title 53 Chapter 1 – Section 53-1-70
Minors Playing Pinball
This is the one that stops people cold. South Carolina law states that it is unlawful for anyone under 18 to play a pinball machine.5South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code Title 63 Chapter 19 – Section 63-19-2430 The statute is one sentence. No arcade exception, no parental supervision carve-out, no distinction between a machine in a bar and one in a pizza place.
The provision lives inside the Juvenile Justice Code, which classifies playing pinball as a status offense, alongside truancy and running away — meaning it’s only an offense because the person doing it is a minor.6South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code Title 63 Chapter 19 – Juvenile Justice Code The law dates to an era when pinball machines could pay out cash and were associated with gambling. Most states repealed their pinball bans decades ago. South Carolina didn’t.
Fortune-Telling Rules
Two separate statutes govern fortune-telling in South Carolina, and reading them together is where the strangeness lives.
The first makes it a misdemeanor to use fortune-telling, palmistry, astrology, or card reading as a way to lure customers into a different business. The penalty is a fine of $25 to $100 or 15 to 30 days in jail. The target is the bait-and-switch model, not fortune-telling itself.7South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code Title 16 Chapter 17 – Section 16-17-690
The second covers traveling fortune-tellers. Anyone who goes from place to place telling fortunes has to get a license from the clerk of court in the county where they plan to operate. The fee is $100, the license lasts a year, and it only applies in counties where the local governing body has passed a resolution authorizing the collection. Operating without the license carries up to $100 or 30 days per offense.8South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code Title 40 Chapter 41 – Section 40-41-310
Fortune-telling regulations have come under growing First Amendment scrutiny in federal courts, with some struck down as content-based restrictions on speech. South Carolina’s provisions have not been tested in a case that forced the issue.
Profanity Near a School or Church
South Carolina’s disorderly conduct statute makes it a misdemeanor to use obscene or profane language on any highway, at any public gathering, or within hearing distance of a school or church. Public intoxication and disorderly behavior fall under the same provision. A conviction brings up to $100 or 30 days in jail.9South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code Title 16 Chapter 17 – Section 16-17-530
The “within hearing distance of a schoolhouse or church” phrase is what makes the statute strange on its face, and it’s also the part most vulnerable to challenge. The U.S. Supreme Court has long held that the government cannot criminalize the mere public display of a profane word without a more specific justification; offensive speech does not lose First Amendment protection just because it offends.10Justia. Cohen v. California The narrow exception is fighting words — language aimed at a specific person in a way likely to provoke immediate violence.11Oyez. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire A clean swearing-near-a-church prosecution would almost certainly fail. The text on the books is broader than what any court would uphold.
Sunday Alcohol Sales and the Homegrown-Wine Exception
Beer and wine sales are prohibited between midnight Saturday and sunrise Monday. A conviction can bring up to $100 or 30 days in jail, and the seller’s state license is revoked.12South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code Title 61 Chapter 4 – Section 61-4-120 The one wine carve-out applies only when the grapes were grown in South Carolina and the wine was harvested, processed, fermented, bottled, and sold at the same location, with local government approval on top of that.
Counties or municipalities that have passed a referendum allowing liquor by the drink on Sundays let establishments sell beer and wine during those same authorized hours. There is also a narrow religious-observance exception: a business owner who closes on Saturdays for religious reasons can apply for a $50 Sunday beer and wine permit, available only in counties that authorize such permits. Opening on Saturday after filing the affidavit is grounds for revocation.13South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code Title 61 Chapter 4 – Section 61-4-620
Cruelly Transporting an Animal
South Carolina has a specific statute making it illegal for an owner or anyone with custody of an animal to drive or work the animal when it is unfit for labor, or to carry it in a vehicle in an unnecessarily cruel manner. Violations carry the same penalties as general animal cruelty.14South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code Title 47 Chapter 1 – Section 47-1-50
Those penalties are not trivial. The general cruelty statute makes it a misdemeanor to knowingly overload, overwork, or deprive an animal of food or shelter, with a first offense bringing up to 90 days or a $100 to $1,000 fine. A second offense can mean two years and up to $2,000. Torture or needless mutilation is a felony punishable by at least 180 days and up to five years, plus a $5,000 fine.15South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code Title 47 Chapter 1 – Section 47-1-40 The transport language reads as if it was drafted for someone loading mules into a wagon, but it applies to modern livestock hauling just the same.
Why These Laws Stay on the Books
A court striking down a law as unconstitutional does not remove it from the code. The ruling blocks enforcement, but the text stays put until the legislature affirmatively repeals or amends it. Legal scholars call these zombie laws, and South Carolina has plenty of them. Few legislators see political upside in spending floor time on statutes nobody is enforcing, so the provisions linger.
The practical risk is small but not zero. An unenforced statute can still be selectively invoked, giving an officer or prosecutor a technical basis for action when the real motivation lies elsewhere. That possibility is the strongest argument for cleaning up dead-letter laws. Until the legislature decides the cleanup is worth the effort, the pinball ban, the Sunday lumber rule, and the traveling fortune-teller license will remain exactly where they are.