What You Need to Know About Michigan and the Purple Paint Law

This is an update on a story we did last year in May.

As you're getting out of the house here and there and decide to take a walk through nature...and you happen to see purple paint on trees or posts where you are walking, that means..."No Trespassing."
Read More: If You See Purple Paint in the Woods, You Need to Leave

What does it mean if you see purple paint on a fence or trees?

It's based on a law called "The Purple Paint Law" and in essence it does indeed translate to Stay Away, Keep Out, Keep Off, No Trespassing. But why purple paint? What happened to this?

Photo by Sharon Carr on Unsplash

Well wind, rain, the elements, people stealing signs and the like made it a bit of a chore to make sure these stayed up. If you've got a big ole piece of land and you don't do regular maintenance on it, a sign could come down and someone could wander onto your property. Without proper marking or posting, you might have hunters or anyone on your land doing things you don't want them to do.

So thus the PURPLE PAINT. You could spray it on a tree, several trees, fence posts, what have you. Wind won't blow it down and it's a legit, different colored marking that will stand out.

What states have a purple paint law?

That's all fine and dandy if it were a law here in Michigan WHICH IT IS NOT. It's common knowledge and if you're out and see it, you should go the opposite direction. But it's not a law here.

These states, yes:

Why doesn’t Michigan have a purple paint law? Should it be introduced?

Exactly what happened in Michigan? Well back in 2005:

While the bill was passed by the Senate, it never made it through the House of Representatives.
Read More: If You See Purple Paint in the Woods, You Need to Leave

But as recently as last month (March 2021), Michigan Senators are back at it again.

It's Senate Bill 106 and now it's headed to the House of Representatives. However this time, opposition is coming from DNR. Of ALL the objections they have with the newly proposed bill, a sticking point is THE COLOR PURPLE.

The reasons listed by the DNR are the following:
• An inability to see paint on trees in low light situations
• The fact that some people have certain variations of color blindness and aren’t able to see the color purple
• The potential for improper markings of property lines with paint that cannot be easily removed in the way an improperly placed signed could be
• The general belief that private property signs are the known standard for marking property and are easily recognizable to the general public. (Cadillac News)

Even in places where it is the law, a lot of folks really have no clue as to what it is and what's all this purple about?