A Bear of a Good Time
Missouri and Kansas City have some fascinating laws.
Howdy! It’s Joey, back with more Fun Fact Friyay. Today’s fact is for both law-abiding citizens and rebels.
In Missouri, it’s illegal to wrestle or transport uncaged bears. In Kansas City, it’s illegal to own a bathtub with legs resembling animal paws.
I recently took a little weekend getaway to Kansas City—mainly the Missouri version, though I did pop over into Kansas for a delicious Cubano sandwich from Cortadito Cuban Cafe—and I was impressed by how charming the area is!
It’s got lovely art all over the place, fascinating museums, a quaint weekend farmer’s market with local vendors, and some terrific BBQ. I went to a Kansas City Royals game AND correctly guessed the winner of the between innings hot dog race. Thanks for making me proud, Relish.
What I did not know about Kansas City, and Missouri in general, is their variety of bear and animal-themed laws.
Missouri statute 578.176 offers a Class A misdemeanor to anyone who wrestles a bear.
Not only that, you can’t even train a bear to wrestle. No Kansas City Rocky-esque montages. It’s also illegal to buy or sell a wrestling bear or permit a bear-wrestling match on their premises.
If you MUST have a wrestling event in your backyard, keep it to two humans—or robots, since Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots is a gem (and yes, I know that’s boxing, but let’s not get into semantics for the purpose of this law).
The good news is that you would almost certainly lose a wrestling match against a bear. So, it’s for our own safety that it’s forbidden.
Beyond wrestling, it’s also illegal to drive with an uncaged bear in your car. This law seems to be an effort to prevent illegally transporting exotic animals, so I’m all for it.
Plus, the idea of an uncaged bear reminds me of Gentle Ben’s appearance as a talk show host on The Simpsons. And that did not end well.
Finally, if we zoom into Kansas City specifically, it’s apparently against the law to have a bathtub with legs that resemble animal paws or claws.
This probably stems from folks actually using real animal paws back in the day. Wanting to understandably nip that in the bud, lawmakers gave us this ruling.
As far as I can tell, the law is only specific to animal paws. I suppose if you wanted your bathtub legs to look like a gorilla’s chest or a pig’s tail, you’d be fine to do it.
One bonus odd law specific to Kansas: It’s technically forbidden to put ice cream on top of your cherry pie. Thankfully, this law is not enforced.
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