The Minneapolis City Council will consider legalizing and regulating venues, such as adult bathhouses, where consenting adults can engage in sexual activity. The city has banned such venues for nearly 40 years. “In 1988, Minneapolis passed an ordinance to ban bathhouses. There were three bathhouses that existed in the city: Hennepin Baths, Locker Room Baths and Big Daddy’s Bath House,” MPR News stated. “All of them closed prior to the ban. Locker Room Baths was known as the 315 Health Club at the time of closure,” it added. The city council referred a package of four proposed ordinances to staff. “The ordinances would create a licensing framework, update zoning regulations, revise health standards and add exceptions to existing indecency laws,” CBS News reports. Minneapolis may legalize adult bathhouses – allowing adults to engage in sexual activity https://t.co/OTnhxHth3q pic.twitter.com/Lt0nGeLKZP — New York Post (@nypost) April 8, 2026 CBS News explained further: The proposed changes come as the city council also considers a proposed ordinance that would decriminalize drug paraphernalia. Adult bathhouses and sex venues were a component of nightlife prior to the advent of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, which led to the passage of a surfeit of ordinances banning them among virtually all U.S. urban areas. As reported by the Star Tribune, the last bathhouse to operate legally in Minneapolis closed in 1988. The Star Tribune added that, in a statement, council member Jason Chavez argued, “LGBTQIA+ gathering spaces, including bathhouses, have long been targeted by criminalization and policing, and our communities have paid a devastating price for that.” Several cities in Minnesota, including Duluth and St. Paul, have allowed the bathhouses to continue operating with varying levels of oversight. One ordinance would add a new chapter to city code specifically for adult sex venues. It would establish licensing and business regulations for establishments where sexual activity between consenting adults may be facilitated. “We don’t necessarily look back at the codes that we’ve adopted and revisit them and be like, ‘is this still what we need?’ I think this is something we don’t need if it doesn’t match our current public health landscape,” one advocate said, according to MPR News. Minneapolis city leaders to consider bathhouses that allow sexual activity https://t.co/hUTI41Gz0e — The Minnesota Star Tribune (@StarTribune) April 7, 2026 More from MPR News: While places like New York and San Francisco are considered LGBTQ+ capitals of the nation, historians say there was a rich and expanding industry for places like adult bathhouses in the Twin Cities and, until the 1979 raid, they went largely unmonitored by police departments. Compared to other major cities, Minneapolis is an outlier by not having bathhouses. Numerous cities across the nation including Chicago; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Cleveland, Ohio; Berkeley, Calif.; Dallas, Texas, and more have them. And a bit to the north, Duluth also has one. The council is expected to forward a series of directives to city staff on Thursday that would decriminalize and legalize adult bathhouses and sex venues and introduce zoning and health ordinances. A final vote is expected in June after a public hearing.