Cullman, Alabama- A book store removed copies of Playboy and Playgirl magazines from its racks after a small-town prosecutor warned they violated Alabama’s strict anti-obscenity law.

District Attorney Len Brooks said he was pleased that Books-A-Million Inc. had removed the magazines, but an investigation was continuing.

“We must continue to work to insure the community standard and values of morals and decency that have been established here are not compromised,” Brooks said.

There was a newspaper report that Brooks said a criminal investigation was being conducted into complaints that Playboy and Playgirl were on sale at the Books-A-Million store in Cullman, a town of about 14,000 located about 50 miles north of Birmingham.

Known for a conservative bent that includes a ban on alcohol sales and a beer-free Oktoberfest, Cullman is home to two monasteries and the Ave Maria Grotto, a miniature model of Christian sites made by a monk.

Brooks said he had received a letter from Books-A-Million President Sandra B. Cochran stating that the placement of the magazines in the Cullman store was a mistake.

“After an investigation of this situation, these magazines have been removed from sale,” Cochran said in the letter.

Known as one of the nation’s strictest anti-obscenity statutes, Alabama’s 1998 anti-obscenity law prohibits any display of human genitalia, buttocks or female breasts “for entertainment purposes.”

Playboy magazine is still sold in many areas of the state, but Brooks said the law is based on a “community standard.”

“Simply put, what is considered acceptable in one community, under this law, may not be acceptable in another,” he said.

Playboy spokesman Bill Farley said he was familiar with Alabama’s anti-obscenity law but not with complaints over the magazine in Cullman.

A free-speech expert said threats of obscenity prosecutions usually involve “hard-core” material and not Playboy, which typically does not depict sex acts in photos.

“(Playboy) is not the patently offensive material that you typically think of with this kind of thing,” said David Hudson of the First Amendment Center in Nashville, Tenn. “Some serious authors write for Playboy.”

The Books-A-Million flap isn’t the first time Playboy has run up against conservative attitudes in Cullman.

University of Alabama offensive lineman Wesley Britt, whose home is in Cullman, declined an offer to be honored as a member of Playboy’s preseason All-America team last year, saying the magazine didn’t conform to his Christian faith.

Books-A-Million operates more than 200 stores in 18 states and the District of Columbia under the names Books-A-Million, Bookland and Joe Muggs Newsstands.