Region has share of silly laws

(Disappointment Valley, CO — Desert Sun — April 29, 2016)

I always enjoy the timely baby journalist pieces about antiquated laws in bluenose locales like New England and the American South. These folks have been sitting on their porches since the 1600s and have had plenty of time to dominate police blotters and tie up the courts with ridiculous directives and lukewarm commandments still on the books for the benefit of no one.

We folks out here in the Real West have not had the luxury of 400 years to hone our own restrictive edicts but we have developed a few that are real whoppers! Here are some of the more entertaining ones:

It is against the Territorial Law (never rescinded) to talk with your mouthful while driving through Sapinero. That is why the restaurant at Hunter’s Point has had such a bad track record. Tourists who insist on picnicking should be aware that their vehicles are subject to search without provocation. Fortunately Sapinero cannot afford a police department and the laws are pretty much ignored by everyone including the bighorn sheep that eat with their horns on.

It is against an 1892 ordinance to spit on the street in Gunnison, Colorado when the temperature dips below zero. Without lowering ourselves to descriptive graphics the situation seems quite clear: The spit freezes threatening the safety of other pedestrians who might slip on it and fall.

There is a humorous restriction still on the books in Ridgway that makes it a misdemeanor to wear dirty long-handles into the Uncompahgre River. The act itself can land the culprit 2 days in jail. According to ledger footnotes, the law was passed in an attempt to protect trout in the river, one of the first decrees aimed at environmental preservation.

Another sister law prohibits the use of gravel on state and county byways since it irritates horses and fouls up carriage wheels. This 1879 law was passed just hours after the Brunot Treaty, the precursor of banning the Utes from the San Juan Mining District so the White folks could dig for gold. It was never clear if gravel referred to precious metals.

One could be arrested for walking down Elk Avenue naked in 1890. It is still the same today in Crested Butte. Usually in mid-winter the offender was also forced to undergo psychological evaluation. Secondary streets in the booming coal town did not fall under the same jurisdiction. Dogs were never included in the restrictions.

Up until 2013 it was a crime to cultivate marijuana in Colorado. Today state tax coffers are bulging with cash encuraging state leaders to consider investing the boon in education, transportation infrastructure and social programs for the underprivileged. These priorities had long been ignored by federal authorities in favor of bombing other sovereign nations.

-Kashmir Horseshoe