Every state has its share of bizarre laws, but Indiana might just take the cake. After digging through actual legal codes and municipal ordinances, I've discovered that some of the Hoosier State's strangest laws are completely real, while others are urban legends that somehow became "fact" through endless internet sharing.
You can't buy cold soda at Indiana liquor stores
This isn't a joke or an urban legend. Indiana is literally the only state in America where liquor stores are legally prohibited from selling cold soft drinks.
Indiana Code 7.1-3-10-5 specifically states that package liquor stores cannot sell "cooled" or "iced" carbonated beverages, mineral water, or even grenadine. They can stock these exact same products warm on their shelves, but the second they put them in a refrigerator, they're breaking the law.
Why does this head-scratching law exist? It's all about protecting liquor stores' monopoly on cold beer sales. The thinking goes: if liquor stores could sell cold Coke, then grocery stores would demand the right to sell cold Budweiser. And liquor store owners really, really don't want that to happen.
The Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission actively enforces this regulation. As of 2023, there's been ongoing legislative debate about how this applies to newer products like hard seltzers and premixed cocktails. Do they count as "carbonated beverages" or alcohol? Nobody's quite sure yet.
The law that survived multiple challenges
What makes this even weirder is that the cold soda ban has survived multiple legal challenges over the years. Liquor store owners fiercely defend it as essential to their business model, arguing it's part of Indiana's complex three-tier alcohol distribution system.
I talked to a liquor store owner in Indianapolis who told me customers ask about cold sodas at least three times a day. "I have to explain that yes, we have Coke, but no, it's not cold, and no, I can't put it in the cooler for you," he said. "People think I'm messing with them."
When your coroner becomes your sheriff
Here's a law that sounds made up but is absolutely real: Indiana county coroners have the legal authority to arrest the sheriff.
Indiana Code 36-2-14-5 states that when a warrant is issued for a county sheriff's arrest, it "shall be served by the coroner… The coroner, who shall commit the sheriff to the county jail, has custody of the jail and its prisoners during the imprisonment of the sheriff."
Think about that for a second. The person who usually spends their days determining causes of death can suddenly become the county's top law enforcement officer.
This isn't some dusty old law from the 1800s either. It was enacted in 1980 as a legitimate check-and-balance provision. When the chief law enforcement officer becomes compromised, someone needs the authority to arrest them and take control of the jail. That someone is the coroner.
According to legal experts, this provision has actually been used, though rarely. It's one of those laws that seems absurd until you realize it addresses a real problem: what happens when the person running the jail needs to be in the jail?
The great South Bend monkey smoking scandal
In 1923, South Bend made national headlines when a performing chimpanzee named Jocko Dooley was arrested, tried in court, and fined five dollars for smoking a cigarette in public.
The city's response? They passed an ordinance specifically banning anyone from forcing monkeys to smoke cigarettes.
According to the Notre Dame Law Review from 1927, this was part of the broader anti-smoking movement of the era. The historical accounts suggest this law may still technically be on the books, though South Bend officials haven't exactly made monkey smoking enforcement a priority in recent decades.
What I love about this story is how seriously everyone took it. There was an actual trial. For a monkey. Smoking a cigarette. In 1923, this was apparently the pressing issue of the day.
Hands off those catfish
If you've ever watched those reality shows where people catch catfish with their bare hands, you should know that's explicitly illegal in Indiana.
IC 14-22-9-1 prohibits taking fish "by the hands alone" from state waters. This isn't some forgotten law either. It was originally codified in 1995 and has been amended multiple times, most recently in 2012.
Why Indiana hates hand fishing
Dr. Spencer Cortwright from Indiana University Northwest explains that this law exists to prevent "hogging" catfish. When people grab male catfish who are guarding their eggs, it leaves those eggs vulnerable to predators. It's actually a conservation measure disguised as a weird law.
Conservation officers can and do enforce this law, though they typically focus on repeat offenders rather than someone who accidentally grabbed a fish. Still, if you're wading in an Indiana river and a catfish swims into your hands, legally speaking, you'd better let it go.
The prohibition includes several related activities:
- Snagging fish with hooks
- Using electric devices to stun fish
- Employing nets in restricted areas
- Hand-grabbing during spawning season
Your kids' lemonade stand is probably illegal
Here's one that affects thousands of Indiana families every summer: it's technically illegal for children to operate lemonade stands without proper permits and licensing.
Indiana law requires food service permits and business licenses for any food or beverage sales, no exceptions for adorable six-year-olds with hand-drawn signs. While police rarely shut down neighborhood stands, they technically could.
House Bill 1019 in 2024 would have legalized children's lemonade stands, but it died in the Indiana Senate. Similar bills have been proposed multiple times without success. So yes, that refreshing cup of lemonade from the neighbor kids remains a criminal enterprise.
One parent I spoke with said she was shocked when she learned this. "My daughter wanted to raise money for the animal shelter, and technically we were breaking the law? That's insane."
Cities getting creative with weird ordinances
Indiana's individual cities have contributed their own peculiar laws to the mix.
Warsaw really hates snowballs
In Warsaw, it's illegal to throw snowballs anywhere within city limits. Code 54-61 prohibits throwing "any snowball, stone or other hard substance" along streets, sidewalks, or public places.
This means that epic neighborhood snowball fight you're planning? Technically illegal. Building a snowman and playfully tossing snow at your friend? You're a criminal in Warsaw.
Evansville's laser pointer panic
Evansville takes laser pointers extremely seriously. If you're caught with one on city property and it causes any bodily injury, you face a minimum $1,000 fine. This includes places like the zoo or Ford Center.
The ordinance passed in 1999 during what I can only describe as peak laser pointer hysteria, when everyone was convinced teenagers with laser pointers would blind airplane pilots and cause mass chaos.
Gary's dead animal transport rules
Gary prohibits transporting dead animals along streets if any part of the carcass is exposed. While this is actually a reasonable public health measure, the specific wording in the municipal code makes it sound particularly bizarre.
Recently repealed ridiculousness
Indiana has actually made progress eliminating some of its weirder laws.
The death of the happy hour ban
For 40 years, Indiana bars couldn't offer happy hour drink specials. Time-specific discounts on alcohol were completely illegal until Governor Holcomb signed House Bill 1086 in July 2024.
Think about that. For four decades, a bar couldn't say "half-price drinks from 4 to 6 PM" without breaking the law. The restriction seemed increasingly absurd as craft cocktail bars and breweries exploded across the state.
Throwing stars are finally legal
Senate Bill 77 in 2023 legalized throwing stars and certain knives that were previously classified as prohibited weapons. The popularity of axe-throwing establishments made the old ban untenable.
These items remain illegal on school property, which seems reasonable. But at least now you can legally own ninja stars in Indiana, fulfilling the dreams of every kid who grew up watching martial arts movies in the '80s.
Separating fact from fiction
Not every weird Indiana law you've heard about is real. The internet loves spreading these myths, and they get repeated so often that people assume they're true.
The pi equals 3.2 myth (sort of)
You've probably heard that Indiana once legally defined pi as 3.2. This is only partially true. House Bill 246 in 1897 did attempt this mathematical impossibility. It actually passed the House unanimously before dying in the Senate.
But here's the thing: pi was never actually redefined by law. A mathematician who happened to be at the Statehouse explained to senators why you can't legislate mathematical constants, and they killed the bill. It remains a cautionary tale about legislators voting on things they don't understand.
Complete fabrications
These supposed Indiana laws are totally made up:
- Hotel sheets must be 99 inches long
- Bathing is illegal between October and March
- Men with mustaches can't kiss anyone
- Monkeys can't ride streetcars (wrong city)
- Firefighters must have regulation mustaches
I spent hours searching through Indiana legal codes and historical records. These laws simply don't exist and never did. Yet they appear on almost every "weird laws" list about Indiana.
Why these bizarre laws stick around
According to Nathan Belofsky, author of The Book of Strange and Curious Legal Oddities, most legislators aren't even aware many of these laws exist. They're buried in massive legal codes that nobody reads cover to cover.
Professor Stephanie Morrow, who teaches communications law, told me that repealing laws is often harder than passing them. It requires time and resources that legislators would rather spend on new initiatives. "Nobody wants to be known as the senator who spent six months working on the monkey smoking repeal," she explained.
The overcriminalization problem
The University of Cincinnati Law Review calls weird laws part of America's "overcriminalization problem." While rarely enforced, they create potential for selective enforcement and abuse of police power.
In 2012, Indiana created a Committee on Government Reduction specifically to remove antiquated laws. They made some progress, but many weird laws remain simply because nobody has taken the time to formally repeal them.
Making sense of the madness
After all this research, I've realized Indiana's weird laws tell us something important about how government works (or doesn't).
Laws accumulate like sediment over time, with each generation adding new rules while rarely removing old ones. Some, like the hand-fishing ban and cold soda prohibition, serve actual purposes even if those purposes seem strange. Others, like South Bend's monkey smoking ordinance, are historical curiosities that reflect the concerns of bygone eras.
The real issue isn't that police will arrest you for coasting downhill in neutral (though that is illegal under IC 9-21-8-44). It's that these laws undermine respect for the legal system itself. When laws become punchlines, it's harder to take any laws seriously.
Resources for the curious
If you want to explore Indiana's laws yourself or understand how legislation works, here are some helpful resources:
Want to see how laws are made? Check out the Indiana General Assembly website. You can search current Indiana laws at the official Indiana Code database.
For those wondering if your state has equally weird laws, sites covering Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois unusual statutes make for entertaining comparison reading. And if you ever need actual legal help in Indiana, the Indiana State Bar Association can connect you with real lawyers who understand which laws actually matter.
Just remember: you can buy warm soda at the liquor store, keep your hands off those catfish, and whatever you do, don't let your monkey light up a cigarette in South Bend. Some laws are too weird to break, even if they're too weird to believe.
