1st Condom Purchase is Public Event : Business: Camera crews were on hand for the opening of Newhall’s Safe Sex Shop.

It’s a common paranoid fantasy for teen-age boys, but a 17-year-old senior at Hart High School in Santa Clarita had it come true, and kept his aplomb throughout.

Buying a condom. The stuff of fears and embarrassment so common they are a staple scene in coming-of-age movies. The fear that a disapproving adult will pop up. The hope that this will be a private moment.

It was anything but private for a youth who gave his name as Jimmy Miller when he became the very first customer Monday of the drive-in Safe Sex Shop, which sells condoms at a converted Fotomat booth in Newhall. His $3 purchase not only took place in the company of two buddies, but it was recorded by two reporters and a TV news camera.

“I think it’s good,” Miller said of the condom shop, which had been opened just two hours before by a local attorney and auto-body shop proprietor, who said they want to help combat AIDS.

Miller conceded that once upon a time, he was too embarrassed to buy condoms in drug stores--although only, he said, “when my mother was with me--not when I was alone.” One druggist refused to sell to him, saying he was too young, he said.

He made a quick run Monday to the new shop for a package of three, he said, “because I ran out.”

His purchase under a TV camera’s gaze added irony to the occasion, because City Councilwoman Jan Heidt--at a council meeting one week ago--had suggested that customers be videotaped to discourage such a business.

“Let’s face it, this is a pretty conservative community,” Heidt said Monday. “You’d expect to find this sort of thing happening in Hollywood, but not out here. You can buy contraceptives out here at the drugstore and several other locations. And at the drugstore, the pharmacists are very well equipped to give proper advice on how to use them.”

The drive-in shop’s co-proprietor, Richard Kotler, an attorney, said in jest that he thought of videotaping customers at Heidt’s Newhall bookshop a few blocks away.

“When she talked about video cameras, I thought it was a joke,” Kotler said. “I’m glad the council pooh-poohed that idea.”

The Safe Sex Shop still bore the handiwork of vandals--a shattered window that delayed its scheduled opening two weeks ago. More recently, a sign reading “AIDS Awareness” was partially obliterated by black spray paint.

And three asterisks now replace the word “sex” on a sign visible to motorists on Lyons Avenue, identifying the shop tucked away between a drive-in taco stand and a drive-in dairy as the “Safe * * * Shop.”

“That was done to please the landlord,” said the clerk, Allan Kotler, 69, father of Richard Kotler. “He said it would be better if we removed that word.”

A handmade sign visible to motorists offered a menu of condoms of various types by number, so customers can simply tell the clerk they wish to purchase, for example, “the number four.”

Moments after Miller made his purchase, a Jeep filled with teen-age boys drove up. The driver glanced at the menu. They didn’t buy anything just then, but as they drove away, one yelled back: “Yeah! See you guys later!”