Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: No Double Parking

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: Any person who shall place any wagon, cart, dray, or carriage, of any kind whatever, in any public square, street or alley within the borough, and shall suffer the same to remain more than two hours, excepting for the purpose of loading or unloading, on being convicted thereof, shall forfeit and pay for such offense a fine of not less than one nor more than five dollars.



Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: No Fido Allowed Here

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: No person attending said market either as a seller or buyer, shall bring any dog with him, whether chained or otherwise, under the penalty of one dollar.

Note: Dogs evidently do belong in butcher shops though - since I have lost count - just how many pictures I have posted of dogs posing for the camera in some of the old butcher shops surrounded by large piles of meat. 

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: Blocking of Intersections

 Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: Any person who shall place any wagon, cart, sled, sleigh, or other vehicle, or horses or animals thereto attached, on any of the crossings at the intersection of any of the streets or alleys in the borough, shall forfeit and pay a fine of not less than one dollar nor more than two dollars for each and every offense. 

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: Huckster

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: No person shall on the regular market days be permitted in or at the said market house to huckster or sell at second hand, or to purchase for the purpose of retailing, any articles before nine o'clock, A.M., under the penalty of five dollars.



Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: Meat Market Rules

 Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: No person shall be permitted to slaughter or dress any animal in said market house, or on the public ground adjoining thereto, or leave or throw any garbage or offal of any kind within said limits, or cause the same to be done, under penalty of five dollars.

NOTE to the term offal:  refers to the internal organs and entrails of a butchered animal.

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: You Go No Boom Law

 Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: No person shall haul through or on the streets of the borough more than five hundred pounds of gun or blasting powder, nitro-glycerine, or other similar explosive substances, on one and the same vehicle, and the kegs, casks, or cans containing powder or other like explosive substances, hauled through the streets, shall be perfectly secure and tight, so as to prevent any powder or other substances whatever from escaping there-from, nor shall any team attached to any vehicle hauling powder, be driven at a faster rate than a walk, nor shall any driver, while driving such team, use a lighted match, cigar, or pipe, and any person violating any of the provisions of this section shall, on conviction, be fined not less than five dollars nor more than twenty-five dollars.

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: Meat in the Market

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: Butchers and others occupying any part of said market house, shall find their own blocks, benches, and locks, and the blocks and benches shall not extend into the passage-way, between the stalls, more than four feet, under the penalty of a fine of three dollars, and being compelled to remove the same.

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - No Permit Needed

 Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: That for lectures on scientific or literary subjects, exhibitions of fairs, exhibitions of paintings or statuary given or made by citizens of the borough, musical parties or concerts for benevolent or charitable purposes, no license or permit shall be required. 

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: Privy Time

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: Every privy within the borough shall be walled or substantially planked so as effectually to prevent it from caving in on the line of the adjoining property; it shall be kept from nauseous and offensive smells to the neighborhood.

Codified Ordinance: Intersections

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: Any person who shall place any wagon, cart, sled, sleigh, or other vehicle, or horses or animals thereto attached, on any of the crossings at the intersection of any of the streets or alleys in the borough, shall forfeit and pay a fine of not less than one dollar nor more than two dollars for each and every offense. 

Codified Ordinance - Tainted Meat

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: No person shall expose for sale at or in said market house any tainted meat, or unsound and unwholesome provisions of any kind, or veal under three weeks old, under the penalty of the same being seized by the market master, and paying a fine of not less than ten dollars. 

Codified Ordinance - Bear and Deer

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: No person, except those who rent stalls, shall be permitted to sell at the market house any fresh meat, except bear meat or venison.

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: To Sell or Vend

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: No person or persons shall be permitted to sell, sell or offer for sale, any fresh meat, poultry, butter, eggs, green fruit, grain, or vegetables in any part of the borough before nine o'clock on regular market mornings, except in or at the market house, under a penalty of not less than five dollars for each and every offense to both seller and buyer, except fresh beef, pork, veal, mutton, or lamb, by any quantity not less than a quarter, to, and for one person: PROVIDED, that merchants shall not hereby be prohibited from selling such articles as form part of their stock in trade: and, PROVIDED FURTHER, Butchers that rent and occupy one or more stalls in the market house, may sell fresh meats from their shops, stores, and place of business; and the butchers and others who do not rent or lease a stall in the market house, may sell fresh meat from their shops, stores, and places of business by paying a license of fifty dollars, all of said license fees to be pain semi-annually, in advance, to be collected by the market master; such shops, stores, ad places of business to be subject to the inspection of the market master, and to all the ordinances of the borough relating to markets, so far as the same may be applicable.

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: Hawking and Vending

 Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: No person shall use or be upon any of the streets, lanes, squares, or public grounds of the borough to hawk or vend thereon any patent medicines, patent, or other article of thing, in such a manner as to collect any crowd or assembly of people, without first having obtained a license from the borough treasurer, the amount whereof shall be fixed by the burgess, and shall not be less than two dollars nor more than twenty dollars for each day.

Codified Ordinance - Having Fun - 1861

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: No person or persons within the said borough shall exhibit any theatrical or dramatic entertainment, or shall act, exhibit, play, or perform any opera, circus-riding, or feats of horsemanship, menagerie, or exhibition of animals, panorama, painting, sculpture, natural curiosity, tricks of legerdemain, musical party, concert, or any other exhibition, entertainment, show or amusement of whatever name or nature, for which money or any other reward is in any manner demanded or received, without a license for that purpose first had and obtained from the burgess and treasurer, which said license or permit shall express for what is granted, and the time it is to continue.

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown - Motor Vehicles - 1911

Back in 1911 Johnstown city council took the first steps to regulate the use of motor vehicles on city streets. 

In an ordinance approved in January 1911 it decreed that the speed of such vehicles should not exceed one mile in 2 and a half minutes or 24 miles an hour.

Going a step further, the city fathers ruled that in dangerous, congested or built-up districts the top speed should be one mile in five minutes, which figures out to 12 miles an hour. 

Those were not the only restrictions imposed on the early automobile drivers in Johnstown. If signaled to do so by the driver of any horse or other animal, the operator of a motor vehicle was required to stop his machine and if circumstances required - to shut off the motor as well.

This apparently was intended to prevent the chugging engines of the early cars from frightening horses and causing runaways. 

Council also decreed in the 1911 ordinance that all motor vehicles have "good and sufficient brakes" along with a horn, bell or other warning device.

Four years later - in 1915 - council adopted a new ordinance to control traffic on city streets. This time it fixed a general speed limit of 15 miles an hour. Motor vehicle operators no longer were required to stop on signal from the drivers of horses. The responsibility for keeping horses under control was shifted more directly to their drivers. "No horse shall be left unattended unless securely fastened," as per the new ordinance.

As a further precaution against runaways, council decreed that "no one shall cease to hold the reins in his hand while driving, riding or leading a horse."

Codifed Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: Any person who shall keep or suffer to remain on his premises or upon any private property, any dead carcass, garbage, offal, putrid meat, nauseous liquor, or other offense or unwholesome matter, or shall cast the same on any vacant lot, or upon any square, lot, or piece of ground belonging to the borough, or on any street or alley, or on the shores or margins of either rivers within the borough, or so near the limits thereof as to annoy and be offensive, the same is hereby declared to be a common nuisance, and shall be removed accordingly, and the person offending shall forfeit and pay for each offense, besides the expenses of removing the same, the sum of not less than five dollars nor more than twenty dollars.

Codified Ordinance - Entertainment - 1861

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: No person shall act, exhibit, show, or perform in or cause to be acted, exhibited, shown, or performed, or be in any manner concerned in the acting, exhibition, showing, or performance of any indecent or blasphemous play, farce, opera, public exhibition, show, or entertainment or performance of any kind whatever.

Codifed Ordinance - Blasphemous Plays - 1861

Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: No person shall act, exhibit, show, or perform in or cause to be acted, exhibited, shown, or performed, or be in any manner concerned in the acting, exhibition, showing, or performance of any indecent or blasphemous play, farce, opera, public exhibition, show, or entertainment or performance of any kind whatever.

Codified Ordinance - Bridges - 1861

 Codified Ordinance - Johnstown Borough - 1861: Any person or persons who shall be guilty of defacing or doing any injury whatever to any portion of wood, stone, or iron work of said bridges, shall on conviction thereof, forfeit and pay a sum of not less that five nor more than fifty dollars, for each offense in addition to the damage.