Illegal Ice Cream

Useless Information Podcast #76 - A Life Forgotten:

"And I hope you'll find this next story as amusing as I did.

It's dated October 15th of 1963 and deals with the House of Representatives overturning a law of Critical National Importance. It has to be really really important right, for them to deal with it?

Believe it or not, for 42 years prior, it had been illegal to sell ice cream in cones, sandwiches and cups anywhere within our Nation's Capital.

That means that some of our most trusted citizens were in direct violation of this law. That includes teachers, church groups, small businesses and small children - thrown all in jail.

At the time it was a misdemeanor to keep or serve ice cream in anything but the authorised units. Those were one half pint, a pint, quart, half gallon, gallon, two gallons, two and one half gallons and any multiple of the gallon. Anything else was not allowed.

So you're probably wondering why they'd have such an absurd law. Well it wasn't absurd when President Woodrow Wilson signed it into law on March 3rd of 1921. You see, back then modern refrigeration was rare, so it was not considered possible to package small quantities of ice cream without it spoiling.

In other words this law was put into place to protect the consumer."