SexWorld, Minneapolis’ adult entertainment store that was once three stories tall, featured a live peepshow and became a rite of passage in the Twin Cities, will close its doors permanently June 29.
The closure was confirmed by Hailey Buchanan of DB Graphics, which owns the store and the THC Joint, a downtown Minneapolis smoke shop also slated to close.
Buchanan indicated the closures were the result of economic stress and regulations on the sale of THC.
SexWorld, at 241 2nd Av. N., opened in 1993 and for nearly all of its run was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, attracting customers but also bachelorette parties and newly christened 18-year-olds wanting to explore its confines.
An employee at the store on Tuesday, who declined to give her name, said she cried for three hours upon learning of the closure.
The store became famous locally for its extensive collection of adult films and toys, and for a 6-foot-long penis that patrons can ride like a mechanical bull.
The store’s most famous employee was perhaps Diablo Cody, the Hollywood screenwriter best known for the 2007 film, “Juno,” who once performed in the live peepshow.
In her biography, “Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper,” Cody described the shop as “the Wal-Mart of sex” and a place that was “perpetually jumpin’.”
