Last Friday, a Boston ordinance banning the use of smokeless (i.e. chewing) tobacco in city ballparks officially took effect, putting Boston in league, so to speak, with the cities of New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

That ban came just on the heels of a vote by Boston city councilors to ban taxpayer-funded travel to North Carolina, following that state’s adopting a law requiring transgender people to use bathrooms according to the gender they were designated at birth.

A week prior saw another ban, passed by Cambridge’s city council, prohibiting the handing out of “single-use” plastic bags by retailers, take effect. In instituting the prohibition, Cambridge joined the Massachusetts towns of Concord, Brookline, Newton, and Newburyport — to name a few — which have all instituted similar.

They’re just the latest items in a long and growing list of Things Banned in Massachusetts Towns, ranging from the more pedestrian (dogs on town beaches, say), to a flurry of anti-smoking laws pushing the against the tobacco industry, to prohibitions meant to carry a larger message — notably, a recent proposal by Lexington residents to ban so-called assault weapons within town limits.

Passed by city councils and boards of selectmen, these prohibitions can reflect the collective values of America's smallest democratic units-- and can reflect, on the smallest scales, that great American tension between individualism and deference to the collective will, sometimes exposing rifts within communities, or even between communities and the constitution itself: A ban on public swearing, passed by Middleborough officials in 2012, was declared unconstitutional by then state attorney general Martha Coakley, who urged the town to repeal the ordinance.

Passed by city councils and boards of selectmen, these prohibitions can reflect the collective values of America's smallest democratic units — and can reflect, on the smallest scales, that great American tension between individualism and deference to the collective will, sometimes exposing rifts within communities, or even between communities and the constitution itself.

Attempted bans on leaf blowers have stoked minor civil (or uncivil) wars within towns, though with little success for opponents of the noisy instruments; only two towns, Cambridge and Brookline, have significant restrictions in place.

Municipalities like Boston are joining the growing list of towns banning smoking in public parks and is now one of more than one hundred towns across the Commonwealth to raise the legal age to purchase tobacco to 21; and the city is one of nearly as many statewide to prohibit the sale of tobacco in pharmacies.  

Boston also joins the City of Cambridge in the somewhat more controversial measure of banning smoking in public housing units.

The trend isn’t always for exclusion; In 2013, Boston “clarified” its zoning laws to explicitly allow for the backyard raising of chickens (though not roosters), staking out a welcoming position within a patchwork of poultry provisions across the Commonwealth, a move hailed as a great step forward by would-be and hitherto off-the-radar urban poultry farmers in the city. 

In the spirit of Democratic self-reflection, we’ve cobbled just a few Things Banned in Massachusetts Towns into a list — but with hundreds of towns and myriad nuances within local laws, it’s an incomplete one at best; so please: if there's a local ban dear or deadly to your heart, drop us a line and let us know.