Why does Chicago have a law prohibiting nuclear weapons?

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture, Education, Public, Chicago, Arts, City, Radio, Curious, Investigation

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tucked in the city’s municipal code is a law that prohibits the production, storage and launching of nuclear weapons in Chicago. We find out why the city decided this law was necessary.

Transcript

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0:31.4	It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region, and investigate.
0:37.4	Report. Explore. From and the region. And investigate. Report.
0:38.3	Explore.
0:39.3	From WBEZ.
0:41.3	What's up, Chicago?
0:43.3	I'm Erin Allen.
0:45.3	The city has a number of odd laws on the books.
0:49.3	You can't fire a cannon in a public way, which seems obvious. You can't die chicks or baby bunnies.
0:58.0	Okay, a little strange.
1:00.0	And you can't build nuclear weapons in the city.
1:04.0	Curious City listener Patrick Brown came across that one while reading the city's municipal code.
1:09.0	I'm an architect as I was digging through whatever, some administrative rules.
1:14.2	I came across the fact that there is a section of the municipal code that kind of makes explicit
1:19.1	that Chicago is a nuclear weapon-free zone.
1:23.5	Cameron Costanzo picks up this week's story.
1:28.3	In chapter 1-16 of the Municipal Code, it says,
	...

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