Part 2 of 9 in Philadelphia Code: Accidental Anthropology
Philadelphia, the Last City That Will Not Let You Spit
Philadelphia Code § 10-601 still bans spitting on city streets. New York repealed its anti-spitting law in 1971. Philadelphia never did.
New York City passed the first American anti-spitting law in 1896. By 1910, every major American city had one. Tuberculosis was the reason. The germ theory was new, public health was a profession, and spitting in public was the visible habit that reformers could attack. The era is documented, beautifully, in the University of Montana's anti-spitting campaign archive.
Philadelphia's version is Section 10-601 of the Philadelphia Code, written in 1903. It makes it illegal to spit on any city street, sidewalk, subway, or floor or passageway of a public building. Penalties for violations of § 10-601 are set in § 10-606 of the same chapter — up to $25 for the first offense, $100 for any after. The law is still in force.
That is the unusual part. Every other major American city has either repealed or stopped enforcing its anti-spitting ordinance. New York repealed in 1971. San Francisco in 1966. Boston in 1973. PhillyMag called it out in 2011 as one of the city's most absurd laws still on the books. Fifteen years later, it is still on the books.
You can argue the law is harmless. It probably is. Nobody is being arrested for spitting in Philadelphia. The law sits in the Code like a museum exhibit from the consumptive era, the way a printed rule about not feeding pigeons or warning children about the dangers of unlocked iceboxes (yes, also still in the Code) sits there.
But the law is also cheap. Enforcement is essentially zero. So the cost of leaving it in place is also essentially zero. The cost of repealing it would be a public hearing, a council vote, a press release, and someone in the administration explaining why they spent a Tuesday morning on a law nobody was being charged under. The political calculus is not subtle. You can see why it has sat there.
What is interesting is the comparative. Philadelphia is the last major US city that has not repealed. New York, the city that started the trend, repealed in 1971, fifty-five years ago. Chicago, the other early adopter, repealed decades ago. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston — gone. Philadelphia is alone. Or, almost alone. A handful of small towns in the South and Midwest still have similar language on the books. Among cities of Philadelphia's size, it is the only one.
This is what an unrepealed law looks like. Not contested, not enforced, not ignored on purpose. Just present, the way the wallpaper is present. The Code is full of these. 1903 anti-spitting is just the most quotable.