Apology’s Not Enough in Condo Kiss Case : Lifestyle: A mistakenly reprimanded Santa Ana grandmother wants damages, plus assurances that no one will be harassed for smooching in common areas of her complex.

Claiming that kissing is a constitutionally protected right, a Santa Ana grandmother Thursday rejected an apology from a condominium association that said she had mistakenly been cited for “kissing and doing bad things for an hour” in a parked car.

Helen (Kim) Garrett, 51, said she will pursue legal action unless the Townsquare Owners Assn. pays her unspecified damages for having been embarrassed and acknowledges that it has no right to punish or threaten anyone for kissing in a car in a common area of the complex.

“Fulfilling those requirements is the only way to protect others and myself in the future,” said Garrett at a Thursday press conference here. “And I feel very strongly about that.”

Bradley D. Walker, attorney for the Townsquare Owners Assn., said he is “puzzled” by Garrett’s rejection of the association’s apology.

Walker did not rule out the possibility that Garrett may deserve compensation but added that the association cannot act until Garrett specifies the nature of her damages and how much money she wants.

“I cannot respond to a request that has not been made,” he said.

In an apology issued Wednesday, Walker had said the violation for which Garrett had been accused had actually involved a young woman and a man, about 17 and 21 years old.

The mix-up apparently occurred, the attorney said, because the address the young woman gave the doorman who reported the incident was that of Garrett, a financial consultant who has two grandchildren.

Walker said Thursday that the young people’s actual violation had been parking in a fire lane in front of the complex--not kissing.

“The association does not have any rules about kissing in public,” he said.

The doorman made a mistake by mentioning kissing in writing up the violation, he said, so the notice that Garrett received was both sent to the wrong person and misworded.

The association has no intention now of trying to find the people who actually violated the parking rules, said Walker, who added that neither the man nor the woman involved would identify themselves to the doorman when he asked for their names.

But Garrett insisted Thursday that she still believes that she was the intended target of the “courtesy notice,” which threatened a fine if the behavior occurred again.

“It was me that was posted, it was me that received the letter and, I believe, that was what was intended at the beginning,” she said.

Asked whether she may have received the letter on behalf of someone she knew, Garrett responded: “I do not want to speculate on what might have happened. I’m only going by what did happen.”

Garrett’s attorney, Gloria Allred, said she has not yet researched case law concerning kissing.

But she said she believes that protections will “be found within the same constitutional provisions which protect a woman in her right to privacy--about her marital rights and her reproductive rights.

“I also firmly believe that the First Amendment, the right of free speech and the right of free association would also include the right to the expression of oneself through a kiss,” Allred said.

Unless a settlement can be reached within the next five working days, Allred said, she will file a lawsuit against the condo association on behalf of her client.

Times staff writer Leslie Berkman contributed to this report.