An Indiana County Just Lifted a 50 Year Ban on Hippies
The reason the law existed in the first place may surprise you.
Sure, the movie Footloose took place in Oklahoma. But it sounds like we had a real Footloose situation down M66. Just across the Michigan / Indiana state line from Sturgis, MI you'll find LaGrange, County, Indiana. LaGrange County is known for it's Amish community in Shipshewana. Apparently, this small county enacted a law in 1971 that banned hippies. County Commissioner Dennis Kratz told wane.com,
I called it our anti-hippie ordinance
The law was inspired by the Woodstock music festival that took place in 1969 in New York state. The nearly 50 year-old ordinance prevent gatherings of more than 500 people that lasted more than 12 hours according to kpcnews.com,
The law was passed in the early summer of 1971, and LaGrange County Commissioner Dennis Kratz surmised that the act was created to prevent an event like Woodstock — the large music festival that happened in rural upstate New York in 1969 — from ever happening here.
County commissioners repealed their anti-fun law as part of their process to modernize Lagrange County laws. Apparently, this is just one of the crazy laws they found on the books that they decided to repeal. They're not just bringing laws up to date. For the last 3 years the commissioners have been updating, organizing and digitizing the system in which laws can be found and categorized. Yes, everything was on paper for the most part. Imagine searching thru laws like that.
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