Debate: Should towns keep old fines or finally update them?

Alice Murphy · 2026-06-30T04:05:03.989697+00:00

In my town there's still a $25 fine for walking a giraffe down Main Street on Sundays. On one hand it's harmless and kind of funny, on the other it wastes court time when someone actually gets cited. Which side do you lean on for these old laws?

john_fisher2mo ago

Haha @sean854's got a point, but the real issue is those old fines make it harder to enforce newer, actually important laws since people just laugh off the whole system.

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allen.iris2mo ago

Gotta disagree with john_fisher on this one. Those old outdated fines actually remind people that the law isn't some super serious, untouchable thing. They humanize the whole system a bit, make it feel less robotic and more like it was written by actual humans who had weird lives. Plus nobody's actually wasting court time on a giraffe fine unless some officer has a really slow day and wants to be petty. If anything, having a few silly laws on the books gives people a reason to actually read the town code and maybe remember the important stuff. It's like a little easter egg in the legal system, not a problem that needs fixing.

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sean8542mo ago

That $25 giraffe fine is probably the only thing keeping society from complete chaos, right?

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