What currently illegal things would you do if they were legal?

[xiphias]

A bunch of people hither and yon on LJ and elsewhere are discussing this question -- I saw it on nancylebov's LJ.

It's an interesting question. I mean, I can think of several things which are illegal which I would like to see legalized, either for the sake of friends of mine, or on general principles, but, for myself? What is there that I personally want to do that the law prevents me from doing?

Oh, and you're not allowed to say, "not pay taxes," because that's too easy.

I mean, I speed sometimes. So the law doesn't actually prevent me from doing that. So that doesn't count. I've got no desire to steal, murder, fight, or break any of those Big Laws.

I remember, when I was a teenager, my mother (rebmommy) and I said that, if marijuana was legalized, we'd get baked together once. Just to have done it. But, since then, both she and I have developed allergies which, through extrapolation, would probably include cannabis. So that one's out.

The one thing that I think I'd do if it were legal would be to use the first floor of our house as a bar/private club. 'Course, right now, vonbeck is living there, so he'd have to find another apartment first, but, if it weren't for zoning laws, public accommodation laws, liquor licensing and serving laws, health code inspection regulations, and food service laws, I'd do that.

And, frankly, I'm generally in favor of all of those categories of ordinance and regulation.

How about you?

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

I live in a rented apartment in a two-family house. The driveway is shaped like an "L", with the widest part of the "L" nearest the street. You can fit three cars nose-to-tail in the vertical part of the "L", with a fourth to one side so that there are two cars side-by-side at the end of the drive nearest the street.

I had been in the habit of parking in that fourth spot.

The town went to my landlord and claimed that that fourth spot, which is paved contiguously with the rest of the driveway, which I had been using for three years, and which tenants before me had presumably been using as well, constitutes an "illegal driveway expansion" and that no one may park there.

I have thus gone from a driveway spot from which I may come and go at will, to one from which I can only come and go with leave of my neighbor because our cars need to block each other in.

If not for my town's stupid zoning laws, all would be well.

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

That's horrible. No chance of arguing that people have been parking there for long enough that it's an established place I assume - there's some laws like that here, if you've been doing it fo X number of years then even if it's technically not allowed then you can carry on anyway. (A squatter became the owner of a house that way because he'd been living there for many years without being evicted. Obviously this doesn't work on 'really' illegal things like murder and such like...)

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

I seee you're in the UK. What you're describing is called "adverse possession," and it does exist here in the US, but only in terms of *occupancy* of the property by someone other than the legal owner. It doesn't refer to use of the property by the legal owner or tenant in a way that doesn't conform to zoning law.

Honestly, I like the UK idea. Zoning laws are intended to prevent use of your property in a way that might be objectionable to the neighbors--e.g., by creating an eyesore, or bad odors, or objectionable traffic or parking problems. If what you're doing doesn't give rise to cause for complaint, then there's no reason to zone against it, is there?

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

I don't think that the UK really has much that's comparable to the US zoning laws. We have various and complicated restrictions on use in various areas and for various buildings, but the zoning thing seems designed to make places fragmented.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

How do you mean, "fragmented"?

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

Just seems to me, where you have zoning type laws - and we get the similar effect in new housing estates - you get houses here, and shops here, and offices here, and pubs here... So each in its separate area whereas if places are allowed to grow organically you get things in the pattern that people need, with a corner shop and a local pub and an insurance office just down the road from where you live.

I could be wrong, but that's the way I percieve it sometimes.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes sense. Up here around the neighborhood in which I live, we're mainly zoned "Mixed Residential/Commerical." It means that you can't open a factory around here, and my town does not allow any pubs whatsoever, although one can have restaurants which serve alcohol. But you can have certain types of professional offices (lawyer's office, CPA office, doctor's office) in your home; you can have a mixed-use building (several of the buildings on my block have ground-floor shop space, and apartments above -- the ground floors have things like a barber, dry cleaner, a dentist's office, an antique store, massage therapist, fitness trainer, oriental rug store, diners, laundromats, and so forth).

So zoning need not lead to the "suburban wasteland" of housing developments with no grocery stores or drugstores within walking distance. Although, yes, it can lead to that when done poorly.