This Common Beach Activity is Actually Illegal in New Hampshire

It has been brought to my attention that I have been breaking the law every time I go to the beach, and didn't even know it!

We haven a lot of crazy laws in New Hampshire that make me scratch my head and yell "WHY?!" into the heavens. For example, (according to onlyinyourstate.com), the opening in a sugar shaker in a restaurant must be less than 3/8 of an inch, according to a law established in 1971. I can't help but wonder the penalty a restaurant would face for breaking this law. It must not be enforced anymore, right?

But when it comes to dumb laws, I think this one takes the cake:

"Collecting or carrying away seaweed at night is illegal."

 

First of all, why are we the only state to have this silly rule? Plenty of other states have beaches! And secondly, why only at night?

Students at Newport Middle High School have won a contest that challenged them to find "New Hampshire's Dumbest Law."

According to the Hampton Library website, farmers used to haul seaweed from beaches to use as fertilizer on corn fields. In the 1700s, a town ordinance banned the practice at night, and maybe this was to give everyone an equal chance to harvest it. So no one had first dibs! This makes sense, sort of.

If for some reason you feel compelled to remove seaweed from the beach in New Hampshire, just make sure you do so "between daylight in the evening and daylight in the morning", according to Fish and Game. This is, of course, if you would like to remain in compliance with the law.