Chatsworth and Northridge have been the long-time homes for the Bally's Health Clubs on De Soto and on Corbin.
L.A. Fitness purchased the California Bally's Clubs and a maelstrom of debate and criticism has befallen L.A. Fitness across the nation.
Bally's sold many lifetime contracts during its tenure of over 30 years, including dollar-a-year memberships as well as set contract prices of $29 a year. Seems L.A. Fitness is trying to abrogate these contracts at its locations across the country.
The Internet shows general consternation with L.A. Fitness in the way they are handling the transition with Bally members. Seems clubs like the one in Studio City mandated that all Bally's members would have to surrender their cards and sign an electronic agreement before they could work out. That, of course, is the legal definition of coercion and throw in a violation or two of the Unfair Business Practices Act embodied in Business and Professions Code 17200.
The Northridge location, which has been on Corbin since 1981 was closed, which means that L.A. Fitness should honor Bally memberships at their Northridge location on Devonshire. Seems that L.A. Fitness has commented differently according to an article in the Chicago newspapers.
The Internet is full of stories from the last week regarding the actions of L.A. Fitness in Illinois, Minnesota, and New Jersey, so we should expect some more horror stories about the Los Angeles area clubs.
Seems L.A. Fitness should just honor memberships from Bally's as they are honoring the ground leases for former Bally's clubs. Seems that there a hundreds who have these memberships from the 1980s and 1990s which L.A. Fitness may or may not honor despite their legal obligations and the bad faith business practices statutes.
Hopefully they will be able to save the location on De Soto which has been a landmark in Chatsworth for 30 years after that transition from Holiday Health Spa.
There is also the issue of whether a gym owner holds the gym in trust for the members which brings up all sorts of other issues which may be seen in a class action.
So will L.A. Fitness be a fit new owner and partner with the Bally's members? We will see.
