A $5 fine for street performing, written in 1897. A 1953 icebox ordinance no one repealed. Nine weird, surviving, or quietly-mutated rules from the Philadelphia Code — read the way you'd read a settlement.
Philadelphia Code § 9-202 sets a $5 fine for street performing — set in 1897, never updated. The city’s modern sidewalk vending regime layered on top.
Philadelphia Code § 10-601 still bans spitting on city streets. New York repealed its anti-spitting law in 1971. Philadelphia never did.
Philadelphia Code § 9-609 (1961) bans laundromats from 1am to 6am, taking 24-hour laundry away from the third-shift workers who need it most.
Philadelphia Code § 10-801 bans leaving an abandoned icebox outside — 73 years after iceboxes disappeared. The word 'icebox' survives in the title.
A 1961 Philadelphia ordinance required laundromats to maintain a public payphone. 65 years later, every Philly laundromat violates § 9-609.
Philadelphia Code § 10-108 was the most detailed municipal horse welfare law in the country. The industry ended in 2023. Council banned it June 2026.
Philadelphia Code § 9-203 bans street vendors from operating midnight to 7am. Chicago, SF, and Boston have no citywide curfew. Philly is the only one.
Philadelphia's $15 Demolition Fund fee on every real estate transaction expires January 3, 2027. The City has not asked the state to extend it.
This is Part 9 of Philadelphia Code: Accidental Anthropology. Philadelphia Code § 15-101 calls the Fairmount Park Commission "former." Then § 15-202, about 225 lines later, says the Commission is "hereby empowered." Voters abolished the Commission in 2008. The Code never quite agreed with itself.