Virginia- A Movie Gallery store in the Northern Neck has removed controversial adult videos that were the target of a grand jury investigation last year.

Labeled “obscene” by citizens and the grand jury, the videos were formerly closeted in a back room of the Kilmarnock store. A clerk there yesterday said that the room and videos were removed “awhile ago.”

New video releases now fill the space.

“Movie Gallery is sensitive to the standards of this community and has decided to remove adult content from [the] store, ” said Andrew B. Siegel, a spokesman for the company.

Siegel said, “Movie Gallery does not believe that its adult-content videos violate any law. Family entertainment provides more that 99 percent of Movie Gallery’s revenue,” he said.

“The fact of the matter is that Movie Gallery was renting obscene material [hard core porn],” Fabiola Gergerich wrote in an e-mail. The Middlesex County resident has campaigned against sexually oriented businesses in the Northern Neck.

“The distribution of ‘obscenity’ is illegal in Virginia and under U.S. laws. The community has a say about what is and what isn’t obscene. Ultimately, what is going to be allowed in a community is up to the citizens,” she wrote.

Last August, a Lancaster County group spearheaded by Gergerich obtained 94 signatures on a petition asking the Circuit Court to declare the store’s adult videos a public nuisance.

In November, a special grand jury indicted the store. According to Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney J.W. Harmon, the grand jury found “obscene” adult videos displayed in the back room, as well as the packaging of some videos in the store’s main shopping area.

The grand jury’s presentment remains under seal. A date has not been set for a trial of the grand jury’s allegations.

Commonwealth’s Attorney C. Jeffers Schm-idt Jr. said yesterday that “Movie Gal-lery’s response may be enough to conclude the matter.”

“Obscenity laws are not aimed at private morals, rather, public morals. Lawmakers and public officials are empowered by the community to safeguard public morals by defending the community’s welfare. And that’s precisely what Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Harman and the grand jury did,” Gergerich wrote.

In February, Movie Gallery announced it was closing 400 unprofitable stores, including 14 in Virginia. Stores at Burgess and Warsaw in the Northern Neck are on the closure list.