(A) The following are declared to be nuisances affecting public morals and decency: no person shall exhibit, display, sell or distribute any book, pamphlet, ballad, printed paper, stereopticon slide, moving picture film or other thing containing obscene language or any obscene prints, figures, pictures or descriptions.
(B) Whenever any police officer arrests any person charged with any offense under the provisions of this section, he or she shall seize the book, pamphlet, ballad, printed paper, picture, slide, film or other thing and take it into his or her custody to await the sentence of the court upon the trial of the offender.
(1) A person commits the offense of distributing obscene materials when he or she sells, lends, rents, gives, advertises, publishes, exhibits or otherwise disseminates to any person any obscene material of any description, knowing the obscene nature thereof, or who offers to do so or who possesses the material with the intent so to do.
(2) Material is obscene when the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest; the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
(3) Material not otherwise obscene may be deemed obscene under this section if the distribution thereof or the offer to do so or the possession with intent to do so is a commercial exploitation of erotica solely for the sake of prurient appeal.
(Prior Code, § 131.01) Penalty, see § 130.99