One day, while house cleaning, Dave Dampier and I came upon an old ordinance book for the City of Naples. Some of the laws were so incredible you had to wonder why they were ever written. Laws are usually drafted to regulate some public ill or danger. When reading these old timers, some, then still on the books, you had to wonder.
Here's an example, paraphrased: "No one shall drive a motor vehicle upon the streets of the City of Naples unless preceded, at a distance of no less than 50 feet, by a person carrying a lantern and announcing "Stand clear, motor vehicle."
This would probably have been good advice when I was learning to drive, but I believe that was the exception. Someone suggested that early auto's frightened horses and humans, and the warning was necessary. Dave and I couldn't figure out why Naples would have such a law. Naples wasn't around in the early day's of those contraptions.
Another ordinance, that still befuddles me, read: "No one shall walk a lion in the City of Naples unless the animal is on a proper leash."
Kinda makes you wonder what type of leash could control a lion. And who the hell had one they paraded down 5th Avenue South. When I lived in Hollywood, California, there was a dude that walked one down Santa Monica Boulevard, but that was Hollywood. You could see anything there.
We brought these arcane ordinances to the attention of the City Attorney, and they were removed.
Naples lion? Could it have been an ancestor of Jungle Larry? Nahhhh.
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