Distribution of materials harmful to minors.
Minneapolis Code of Ordinances § 385.131
in effect385.131. - Distribution of materials harmful to minors.
(1) In enacting this section, the city council declares its purposes and intent to be as follows: There exists an urgent need to prevent commercial exposure of minors to sexually provocative written, photographic, printed, sound, or published materials as these are hereafter defined and which are hereby declared to be harmful to minors.
(2) It is in the best interest of the health, welfare, and safety of the citizens of this city and state, and especially of minors within the city and state, that commercial dissemination of such sexually provocative written, photographic, printed, sound, or published materials deemed harmful to minors be restricted to persons over the age of seventeen (17) years; or if available to minors under the age of eighteen (18) years, that the availability of such materials be restricted to sources within established and recognized schools, religious institutions, museums, medical clinics and physicians, hospitals, public libraries, the minor's home, or government-sponsored organizations.
(3) As used in this section, the terms defined in this subdivision have the meanings given them:
(a) "Minor" means any person under the age of eighteen (18) years;
(b) "Nudity" means the showing of the human male or female genitals, pubic area or buttocks with less than a fully opaque covering, or the showing of the female breast with less than a fully opaque covering of any portion thereof below the top of the nipple, or the depiction of covered male genitals in a discernibly turgid state;
(c) "Sexual conduct" includes any of the following depicted sexual conduct:
(i) Any act of sexual intercourse, actual or simulated, including genital-genital, anal-genital, or oral-genital intercourse, whether between human beings or between a human being and an animal.
(ii) Sadomasochistic abuse, meaning flagellation or torture by or upon a person who is nude or clad in undergarments or in a revealing costume or the condition of being fettered, bound, or otherwise physically restricted on the part of one so clothed.
(iii) Masturbation or lewd exhibitions of the genitals including any explicit, close-up representation of a human genital organ.
(iv) Physical contact or simulated physical contact with the clothed or unclothed pubic areas or buttocks of a human male or female, or the breasts of the female, whether along or between members of the same or opposite sex or between humans and animals in an act of apparent sexual stimulation or gratification.
(v) An act of sexual assault where physical violence or drugs are employed to overcome the will of or achieve the consent of a person to an act of sexual conduct and the effects or results of the violence or drugs are shown.
(d) "Sexual excitement" means the condition of human male or female genitals when in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal;
(e) "Harmful to minors" means that quality of any description or representation, in whatever form, of nudity, sexual conduct, or sexual excitement, when it:
(1) Predominantly appeals to the prurient, shameful, or morbid interest of minors in sex; and
(2) Is patently offensive to contemporary standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable sexual material for minors; and
(3) Taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
(f) "Knowingly" means having general knowledge of, or reason to know, or a belief or ground for belief which warrants further inspection or inquiry or both:
(i) The character and content of any material which is reasonably susceptible of examination by the defendant; and
(ii) The age of the minor; provided, however, that an honest mistake shall constitute an excuse from liability hereunder if the defendant made a reasonable bona fide attempt to ascertain the true age of such minor.
(4) It is unlawful for any person knowingly to sell or loan for monetary consideration to a minor:
(a) Any picture, photograph, drawing, sculpture, motion picture film, video tape, or similar visual representation or image of a person or portion of the human body which depicts nudity, sexual conduct, or sexual excitement and which is harmful to minors.
(b) Any book, pamphlet, magazine, printed matter however reproduced, or sound recording which contains any matter enumerated in clause (a), or which contains explicit and detailed verbal descriptions or narrative accounts of nudity, sexual excitement or sexual conduct, and which taken as a whole is harmful to minors.
(5) (a) It is unlawful for any person knowingly to exhibit for a monetary consideration to a minor or knowingly to sell to a minor an admission ticket or pass or knowingly to admit a minor for a monetary consideration to premises whereon there is exhibited, a motion picture show or other presentation which, in whole or in part, depicts nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement and which is harmful to minors.
(b) It is unlawful for any person commercially and knowingly to exhibit to a minor or to admit a minor to a motion picture show or other presentation which, in whole or in part, depicts nudity, sexual conduct, or sexual excitement and which is harmful to minors.
(c) It is unlawful for any person to allow or encourage a minor to participate in a performance which, in whole or in part, involves the indecent, lewd, or lascivious exposure or use of the minor's body, or any part thereof.
(6) It is unlawful for any person commercially and knowingly to exhibit, display, sell, offer to sell, give away, circulate, distribute, or attempt to distribute any material which is harmful to minors in its content in any place where minors are or may be present or allowed to be present and where minors are able to view such material unless each item of such material is at all times kept in a sealed wrapper.
(a) It is also unlawful for any person commercially and knowingly to exhibit, display, sell, offer to sell, give away, circulate, distribute, or attempt to distribute any material whose cover, covers, or packaging, standing alone, is harmful to minors, in any place where minors are or may be present or allowed to be present and where minors are able to view such material unless each item of such material is blocked from view by an opaque cover. The requirement of an opaque cover shall be deemed satisfied concerning such material if those portions of the cover, covers, or packaging containing such material harmful to minors are blocked from view by an opaque cover.
(b) The provisions of this subdivision shall not apply to distribution or attempt to distribute the exhibition, display, sale, offer of sale, circulation, giving away of material harmful to minors where such material is sold, exhibited, displayed, offered for sale, given away, circulated, distributed, or attempted to be distributed under circumstances where minors are not present, not allowed to be present, or are not able to view such material or the cover, covers, or packaging of such material. Any business may comply with the requirements of this clause by physically segregating such material in a manner so as to physically prohibit the access to and view of the material by minors, by prominently posting at the entrance(s) to such restricted area, "Adults Only — you must be 18 to enter," and by enforcing said restrictions. (84-Or-119, § 1, 7-13-84; 85-Or-021, §§ 1—4, 1-25-85; 85-Or-117, § 1, 6-14-85; 91-Or-145, § 1, 7-26-91)
Source: City of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Code of Ordinances, City Charter and Park and Recreation Board Code of Ordinances (Municode Library, library.municode.com)URL: https://library.municode.com/mn/minneapolis/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=COOR_TIT15OFIS_CH385INGE_385.131DIMAHAMIFetched: 11/2/2026