Comments disabled yet still available to anyone?

timg11

I'm using Zenphoto version 1.4.6, hosted on Bluehost.
I have a gallery with 5 private password protected albums, and one public album.
I don't want to disable the comments plugin entirely because I want to allow comments in the private albums.
The administrator control panel shows the public album is set for "Comments off".
Yet, any unauthenticated user can see the "Add a comment:" forms in the public album and post comments.
This is being used by spammers.

How can I disable comments from the public album?
Why doesn't the "Comments off" setting from the administrator "Albums" tab actually disable comments?

acrylian

Note that 1.4.6 is from 2014 and not the current release. I cannot reproduce this with the current 1.5.