Why is public intoxication a crime in Pennsylvania but specifically not a crime in Minnesota?

It’s the states rights, in the constitution. There are laws made by the government, but individual states can actually impose their own laws that you only have to follow in that state i.e. Arizona and Utah lol.

Illegal and offense are basically the same in definition.

Because it’s a matter of public/cultural consensus and opinion, and morality is an invented thing rather than some sort of universal truth, and the people who wrote the US Constitution were very aware that different groups of people want the freedom to live under different sets of rules, rather than trying to force the same set of rules onto everyone.

Because states make their own laws. As long as they don’t contradict federal laws, states are basically able to make whatever laws they want, without regard to any other state’s law. Likewise, so long as they don’t contradict state or federal laws, local communities are able to make whatever laws they want, without regard to any other locality’s law.

As for things that are specifically allowed in one state and specifically not allowed in others – gambling is the obvious one. Polygamy is another. Gay marriage is a third.

Not allowed, for instance, in Morrisville, Pennsylvania for women to wear cosmetics without a permit.
And in Minnesota women may face up to 30 days in jail if they impersonate Santa Claus.

Different states have different laws. Originally, the various states were more like individual countries united by the federal government, something like the EU. Indeed, Legalese can use State and Country interchangeably.

Do you think that in Pennsylvania this is a holdover from Prohibition-day sentiments? Many states still have dry counties – there are hundreds of them still in existence with about 16,000,000 people living in them. So there is plenty of dry or anti-alcohol sentiment and beliefs in the United States even over 75 years after the Repeal of National Prohibition in 1933.
http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/Controversies/1140551076.html

@ItsAHabit it is my understanding that many states have laws against public intoxication. I’m not convinced that it is as much about a holdover from prohibition. I think it is more about the potential bad choices that can be made by folks with the impaired judgment that tends to accompany intoxication.

The other notable quirk about Pa. is that the ONLY stores authorized to sell liquor are run by the State.

Having lived there for 20+ years, but recently moved to another state, I’m still getting used to being surrounded by aisles upon aisles of booze in grocery stores and every little Deli around. Some of the Delis have one small area with a few cold cuts available to buy sliced while the entire rest of the store is every kind of liquor imaginable. It’s really kind of funny when you first encounter it.

Since I don’t really drink, it doesn’t matter one way or the other to me but I imagine alcoholics must have more of a challenge in Pa. as no State Stores are open on Sundays either. Around here it’s 24/7.

But the one thing handy about the State stores are at moving time. Plenty of free sturdy boxes available all in one central location.

A number of states prohibit any liquor store except those run by the government. In North Carolina, they look like something out of the old Soviet Union; poor selection, indifferent clerks, inconvenient locations sometimes a gruff guard at the door with a pistol, etc.

There are some quirky laws regulating the sale and consumption of alcohol. I’m not sure if it is still this way, but when I was in Kansas about 20 years ago liquor stores could only sell alcohol. No bottle openers, no cups, no lighters, no mixers, no nothing – just alcohol. I found that almost as interesting as the states where liquor stores can have drive through windows.

I’m going to take a silly guess at this.
Minnesota was populated by Norwegians (hard drinking Viking types). Pennsylvania was first established by Quakers.

My guess is it has something to do with precedent. We have a ticket defence program here to help panhandlers and street people to deal with the ridiculous volume of tickets issued them by police for the purpose of harassment. One of the more common tickets is public drinking. In court, we received positive feedback from the judge when we argued that a homeless person has no home in which to consume alcohol; that homeless shelters do not permit the drinking of alcohol on their premises; that alcohol is a legal substance; and therefore the law forbidding public consumption of alcohol discriminates against those without homes by making a legal activity physically impossible.

We lost the case, but only because we hadn’t done proper research for the argument and assembled a list of precedents. The judge had been willing to hear submissions—if we had had any. My guess is that something like this probably happened in one state, but not the other. Because of the way the precedent system works, lower court rulings in a different jurisdiction can be used in court to establish rulings in other places, but it’s not a guarantee. Not until the precedent occurs at a higher court (as a result of an appeal in a lower court) will it have any effect in other jurisdictions. And I know from personal experience that in cases involving civil liberties like this, the Crown is extremely hesitant to appeal specifically because of the risk of allowing the precedent to be established at a higher court.

There are more drinkers in the Minnesota legislature than in the PA legislature?

We have a public intoxication law here. Usually it is only enforced if the person that is intoxicated is a threat to himself or someone. Then the charge is usually dropped after the person has a chance to sober up in the drunk tank.

Quakers are not tee-totalers. Most of them enjoy beer, wine and some hard liquor; they usually do not get arrested for DUI or roam around publicly schnockered, however. At least the ones I hung around with in Philly behaved that way.

The more eastern states have laws that go back to more puritanical times. Minnesota was settled by Germans and Scandinavians who have different attitudes toward intoxication. Each state and locality makes its own rules.

In Vermont, no license is required to carry a concealed firearm, a right under their state constitution. Just a few miles away, in New Hampshire, I have to have a license to do that.

@gailcalled I’m not talking about current Quakers… but their historic counterparts… and under one account were described as:

‘Pleasure, music and art were taboo; dress was painfully plain and speech was Biblical…They gained few new converts and lost many old members.’

‘Prohibition was demanded by the “dries” — primarily pietistic Protestant denominations, especially the Methodists, Northern Baptists, Southern Baptists, Presbyterians, Disciples of Christ, Congregationalists, Quakers, and Scandinavian Lutherans.’ -Wiki

Different laws in different states. As already stated some states simply do not up date some of their older laws. Heres a link to stupid laws that still exist in different states. link In Alabama it is illegal to marry any animal that is not already a relation, or carry an icecream cone in your back pocket, or bath in a water fountain or call a cop shitface.
You’ll be amazed at how many stupid laws exist.

I love this law from Texas.
A recently passed anti-crime law requires criminals to give their victims 24 hours notice, either orally or in writing, and to explain the nature of the crime to be committed.
The ones for Countries are funny too. England has a good one about having a proper time and place when you can shoot a Welsh person with an arrow.
I’m glad you asked this question. It was fun looking at all the stupid laws still in existence.

I’m from PA and I can tell you that regarding alcohol, the law is very old-timey quaker stuff. It seems pretty asinine but, whatevs, I’ve come to find it charming…