Strange Laws

Ella Moss recently sent me an email with stupid laws in other countries inspired by an old post of mine. There are 3 mists, one for the UK, one for the US, and one for Australia.

There are some strange laws in the US, for sure, but none on the list had anything to do with beer. However, the UK started off with an interesting one:

1. You can't get drunk in a pub

A lot of the strangest laws in the UK are linked to alcohol, although they often seem to focus on preventing particular kinds of behaviour while drunk, rather than trying to outlaw drinking altogether. This perhaps says something about the place of drinking in British culture.

If you do want to stay on the right side of the law when you pop down to the pub for a drink, you will need to remember to obey some pretty strange laws that have remained on the books over many years.

Perhaps the most surprising is that it is actually illegal to be drunk on licensed premises!

As well as laws banning driving a car or bike while you're under the influence there are also laws to prevent people from being in charge of a horse, cow or steam engine while drunk.

But my favorite strange law is on the Australia list:

5. You can't crush a beer can between your breasts

Exercising your muscles as you recycle might get you in trouble if you are a woman with the unusual talent of being able to crush beer cans with your breasts.

It is illegal to do this in Western Australia, and it can actually lead to arrest.

A barmaid in Pinjarra was arrested, tried and find a thousand dollars for showing off this trick in public.

If she'd inspired a meme by putting it online, she could have turned a lot of other people into criminals too. [Internet memes are technically illegal in Australia because they don't have a "fair use" clause in their copyright laws. That was #4 on the list.]