She Kisses, and Then Her Condo Assn. Tells : Lifestyle: A 51-year-old’s good-night smooch with her date brings a warning of a rules violation and the threat of a fine if she does it again.

SANTA ANA —  A 51-year-old woman who said she only kissed her date good night outside her condominium has been threatened by her homeowners association with a fine if she does “bad things” again.

At first, Helen (Kim) Garrett said, she thought the warning letter in her mailbox was a prank.

Now, she says, she is angry enough to consider selling her condo or suing the association.

The “courtesy notice” she received from the owners’ association a few days ago was brief, its message to the point:

“Description of violation: Resident seen parking in circular driveway kissing and doing bad things for over 1 hour.” The association, it warned, would “demand a fine” if it happened again.

But Garrett says she only kissed a man good night in his car.

Garrett, a grandmother and financial consultant whose job includes researching court records, says she grew up near Memphis, Tenn., in what she describes as a “strict Baptist” home.

She has lived in her condo for two years and has made California her home for a decade. She considers herself “an educated woman of high moral values.”

“I’m sure there are some 50-year-olds out there who are pretty wild,” said Garrett’s employer, Mark D. Berglas, owner of a Tustin-based financial consulting firm. “Not Kim. . . . I don’t think she smokes. I don’t think she drinks. All she does is work. Out of 30 employees, she’s my top producer.”

Berglas said he learned about the letter sent to Garrett a few days ago when she brought a copy to the office.

Representatives of the Town Square association and Vanco Properties of Long Beach, a management firm, did not return calls.

This is what happened on the evening of May 22, Garrett says: She and a friend pulled into the public, horseshoe-shaped driveway of her complex, he came to an idling stop and she leaned to her left, kissed him, opened the door of his four-wheel drive and walked immediately to an indoor elevator.

Her friend drove away. The time from kiss to exit, she said, was no more than one minute.

“Does it break you up?” she asked.

Still, Garrett says she considers it no laughing matter that the letter was posted publicly at the complex.

She says that when she called Vanco Properties, the management firm that operates the complex, she was “given the option” of attending what she understood to be an arbitration hearing.

“I could go in and let a bunch of people decide whether I can kiss someone good night,” Garrett said. “It’s ridiculous.”

“I feel controlled, I feel watched,” Garrett said.

“If they can judge my morals, which are not wrong, they can just keep passing rules. It will be like Russia.”