KEY POINTS:
The Mackenzie District Council is dusting off the by-laws book and culling some of the wackier ones.
Among the likely discards are 1933 rules for public billiards rooms that forbid an unmarried woman from keeping such premises.
The stairs to such buildings have to be kept clear, and liquor is banned.
Another rule likely to come under scrutiny is a ban on the picking of flowers, cones or pods or the collection of seeds or cuttings from any shrub or plant in public parks or reserves.
Other outdated bylaws include a ban on leaving wheelbarrows on roads or riding a bicycle at more than 16km/h.
Councillors will also be asked to delve into the regulations on the structure and cleaning of privies or water closets, The Press reported.
"Each privy building shall in all respects be well and substantially constructed" and the pan be placed in such a manner "as will effectually prevent the deposit elsewhere than in such a pan of any filth".
Nightsoil was to be removed once a week and owners of privies were required to use quicklime or other disinfectant to "abate offensive smells arising therefrom".
The council's six councillors and Mayor John O'Neill have been asked to read through a full list of bylaws, marking those it believes are obsolete or need amending.
It is recommended those to be repealed include the Mackenzie County Council bylaws of 1933 and, among others, the apartment and boarding house rules of 1972.
The bylaws will be reviewed in about a month.
- NZPA
