WILLIAM DONALD SCHAEFER, Governor Ch. 209

Article 27 - Crimes and Punishments

Section 418B

Annotated Code of Maryland

(1982 Replacement Volume and 1986 Supplement)

SECTION 1. BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF
MARYLAND, That the Laws of Maryland read as follows:

Article 27 - Crimes and Punishments

418B.

(a)  Any person who as actor, dancer, owner, manager,
producer, director or agent or in any other capacity, prepares,
gives, directs; presents, performs or participates in any obscene
performance, exhibition, drama, play, show, dancing exhibition,
tableau, or entertainment in which live persons perform or
participate in an obscene manner in the presence of any other
person or persons who have paid a consideration of any type
whatsoever to observe the exhibition or performance; and

(b)  Every owner, lessee, or manager of any theatre, garden,
building, room, place or structure, who knowingly permits the
same to be used for the purpose of any such exhibition as
enumerated in paragraph (a) hereof, or who assents to its use for
any such purpose shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon
conviction thereof shall be fined or imprisoned according to the
penalty set forth in § 424 of Article 27.

(c) For the purpose of this section, an obscene

performance, exhibition, drama, play, show, dancing exhibition,
tableau or entertainment shall be defined as one in which the
dominant theme of the same, when taken as a whole, appeals to the
prurient interest in sex of the audience, affronts contemporary
community standards relating to the representation of sexual
matters and is utterly without redeeming social value.

(d) (C) This section applies only in Anne Arundel [County]
AND WICOMICO COUNTIES.

SECTION 2. AND BE IT FURTHER ENACTED, That this Act is
declared to be an emergency measure and necessary for the
immediate preservation of the public health and safety and having
been passed by a yea and nay vote supported by three-fifths of
all the members elected to each of the two Houses of the General
Assembly, it shall take effect from the date of its passage.

Approved April 29, 1987.

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