Many people who are new to the area are surprised to learn that Utah has its own weird laws that have never been legislated. A new resident to the city of Salt Lake City will be pleasantly surprised to find that not all city ordinances are enforced by the police, and that there are some very weird ones that exist.
First of all, the city doesn’t have a police force either. But rather than having an officer patrol the entire city, Utah residents elect (and are charged with) a City Council who are elected to enforce the laws that are made by the police. The laws that the police enforce vary greatly by city, but for the most part the police enforce them in a manner that’s fairly standard, which allows for some creativity when it comes to their enforcement.
The city of Utah has a strange “utah law”: the “utah law” is a law made by the people and it’s the people who are supposed to be enforcing it. But as someone who lives in Utah, I’m well aware that this law is broken all the time. To this day I’m still confused as to what “the people” are supposed to be doing.
In Utah, the police are allowed to search your car, houses, and personal property at any time. This is because they say that it is their “duty” to do so. They also say that they are the “protectors” of society and are allowed to do so. If you go on a trip to Utah and have any of these things happen to you, you are required to take your belongings to the police.
Utah is a conservative state so some of these laws are pretty ridiculous. For example, if you are going to a place with a small town, and the police show up, you have to inform them that you are going to the small town and ask that they call the police. If the police don’t tell you where they are going you have to take your possessions to the police and inform them.
I mean, what kind of a state allows you to tell the police to pick you up at the airport? It kind of makes you wonder if we are some kind of backward, socialist state.
I think you have to be in a state with large cities to apply the small town laws. But they are pretty well accepted. One could argue that even the police are allowed to pick you up at the airport, and that you would have to inform them where you are going.
It’s the same as the laws in, say, Ohio.
I guess you could argue that you wouldn’t need to notify the police. But if there are no police, then how can there be an issue? The police probably wouldn’t care anyway, so it’s not a big deal.
The laws are fairly standard in the US, and they have been in effect since the 1970s. That’s why I tend to think we’re not so far off from the original idea of the small-town law. At least we have a few more decades of them to go before a new ordinance gets proposed.