another inscrutable New England politics fact is that Massachusetts counties don't really have governments (except three that do) and relatedly there is essentially no unincorporated land; town boundaries all run up against each other. This map is what that looks like in practice.
"oh but all of these 351 tiny fiefdoms must have generally similar overall laws and norms," you say, in this example where you are being unfairly cast as naive
As a New Jerseyan, this seems like describing the sky as blue to us.
e. that is to say, mere fact-of-the-matter description :P :P :P
Are we looking at "different laws on what kinds of booze you can buy where", or "different laws on whether they let you put out donuts for the bears"? (I am a West Coast person and don't really get any of this.)
Mostly hostile parking regulations tbh, but also stuff like business hours (my town won't allow 24-hour gas stations) and their policy for issuing firearms licenses, and of course when weed was legalized each town had to have its own little fight about whether and where they were going to allow dispensaries. Also there's a town in my region that banned Silly String after some sort of incident.
I don't think anywhere in Massachusetts lets you feed bears. Even New Hampshire doesn't allow that (anymore).
I do love the way my Massachusetts friends all talk about New Hampshire the way fictional space crews talk about regions that are named things like The Outworlds, The Outlaw Rim or The Forbidden Zone
it is a state full of libertarians who are tormented by the fact that 99% of their economy is either selling stuff to Massholes or commuting to Massachusetts because their libertarian system has not produced, you know, jobs
this makes for slightly tense inter-state relations
this goes some way toward explaining why I can't ask my NH friends for their side of the issue (don't seem to have any NH friends)
