8 Things You Can't Do in Northport

Local laws are always a good way to gain insight into a community's values or a particular time or event in its history. They can also be a great source of head scratching.

RealStrangeLaws.com, a website curating odd laws from around the country, lays out the whacky world of legislation. Among the gems listed on the website: In New York City it is illegal to dye a rabbbit, misuse shopping carts, or sell hamburger meat with more than 30 percent fat. In Maryland, it is a crime to commit adultery or break into a cave. And in West Virginia it is a crime to catch fish with dynamite.

Northport has its own share of pointed prohibitions, many of which you might never have known existed. Here are eight, pulled from the village's online code book. You can see the full list of local laws here.

1. You cannot feed waterfowl or "abandon, leave or discard any waterfowl upon any public or private property within the village."

2. You cannot have open containers of alcohol in public, outside bars and restaurants.

3. You cannot open up a strip club or hold a topless show open to the general public.

4. You cannot hold a garage sale without a permit or post signs for said garage sale anywhere but on the place designated within the permit. i.e. no posting fliers on telephone poles.  

5. You cannot use a firearm anywhere in the village and cannot use a slingshot or throw a stone on public property.

6. You cannot go skydiving, or, as the law puts it, engage in the practice of "skydiving, parachuting, soaring or a similarly related activity if as a result of said activity the said person is, with the aid or assistance of any parachute, kite or similar contrivance or a device attached to the body of said person, transported from either an airplane to a point on the ground or from one point on the ground to another point on the ground."

7. You cannot land a plane or helicopter in Northport.

8. You cannot have an unkempt lawn or overgrown hedges viewable from the street. Same goes for clunkers and rusty old appliances.

What else CAN'T you do in Northport--on the books or not? Tell us in the comment section below.