16. Gainesville, Georgia forbade eating fried chicken with a fork in 1961
Eating fried chicken with one’s hands is as American as hot dogs, a picnic favorite, where the use of tableware is often ignored. One of America’s earliest fast food chains used the phrase “finger-lickin’ good” as its tag line for decades when referring to its fried chicken. But Gainesville took it a step further when in 1961 it made it illegal to eat fried chicken in any manner other than by the consumer eating it by hand. The law was enacted as part of a publicity campaign extolling the Georgia community as the premier fried chicken eating community in the United States, but it remains on the books and was even enforced as part of a prank on a vistor’s birthday in 2009.
The town of Quitman, Georgia has a law which forbids chickens to cross the road, according to several legal websites. Though the law appears on many sites which promote the existence of laws that are provably false, it also appears on sites touting the services of law firms. Quitman’s official website does not mention the law, possibly because chickens are unlikely to avail themselves of the internet. As an aside Quitman is also the birthplace of James Pierpont, who was the uncle of financier J. P. Morgan and the writer of the song Jingle Bells, created when he served as a church organist in the town.
