Vent: My town still has a law from 1927 saying you can't walk a goat down Main Street after dark

3 comments

3 Comments

My neighbor once got ticketed for walking his cat on a leash after 10 PM, same law applied because the cat was technically "livestock sized." He spent three weekends in court arguing it was a domestic pet before the judge finally laughed and dismissed it, but the cop still gives him the stink eye whenever they pass each other at the hardware store. Makes you wonder how many people in this town have actually tried to parade a goat around after dark for this to still be on the books.

shane_hayes1mo ago

My grandfather actually got a ticket back in the 80s for trying to walk his dog that looked too much like a sheep after dark. Wildest thing was the officer knew it was a dog, but wrote the ticket anyway because he thought it was funny. Grandpa fought it in court and the judge threw it out, but still had to pay court costs. To this day nobody knows why that law exists or what prompted them to write it. Probably some farmer got real tired of someone's goat eating his prize petunias.

blairc901mo ago

Hold on, hold on, I gotta push back on this a little. Just because a law is old doesn't mean it's useless. That goat law is probably the only thing keeping Main Street from turning into a barnyard after sunset. Imagine you're just trying to get a late night coffee and suddenly you've got a herd of goats blocking the sidewalk, bleating at everyone. You think people are responsible enough to clean up after their goats in the dark? I've seen the mess people leave with their dogs, and that's with poop bags. A goat's digestive system is a whole different problem. And what if a skittish goat spooks and runs into traffic? That's a hazard for the goat and for drivers. That judge was wrong for throwing out the ticket, he should've upheld the spirit of the law. Sometimes the old weird rules are the only thing keeping chaos at bay.