Lockdown Victim: 24 Hour Fitness Files for Bankruptcy, Closes 130 Branches Across US
How many fitness clubs can afford to stay open if forced to comply with the new raft of authoritarian social distancing regulations?
BY
Perhaps one of the worse fall-outs from the government’s mass-panic lockdown policy has been obliteration of the health and fitness industry. Not only has the government’s voluntary implosion of the economy destroyed the market for personal trainers, holistic practitioners and massage therapists, but it’s also wiped out scores of previously successful gyms in the US, UK and Europe.
The irony of the government’s take-down of the health and fitness sector is that while they were ordering all gyms shut, health officials were also insisting that young and healthy people stay indoors for “protection against the virus” – meaning that these one-size-fits-all Lockdown measures have turned into a two-pronged attack on immune health (the very thing you want to be supporting during a supposed epidemic).
It also eliminated one of the best community meeting points which most people have access too.
According to health officials, all gyms may never be ‘safe’ in their post-COVID “New Normal” regime.
How many fitness clubs can afford to stay open if forced to comply with the new raft of authoritarian social distancing regulations?
CBS News reports…
Closures, along with America’s bizarre mask culture, and nonscience-based social distancing fears have made gyms unprofitable (Image Source: WVLT)
24 Hour Fitness has filed for bankruptcy protection, marking the second national gym chain to go under since the coronavirus pandemic erupted across the U.S. The bankruptcy comes one day after the company said it will close 100 locations nationwide.
24 Hour Fitness CEO Tony Ueber blamed the public health crisis, which has killed nearly 116,000 Americans, for the company’s financial problems. “If it were not for COVID-19 and its devastating effects, we would not be filing for Chapter 11,” he said in a statement.
24 Hour Fitness said Monday it will combine a $250 million loan with cash generated from its locations to keep its remaining facilities open during the bankruptcy proceedings. Company officials expect to continue paying staff wages and benefits.
As the virus was spreading, state and local officials forced 24 Hour to temporarily close its locations on March 16. The company said it’s now reopening its more than 400 locations in phases and expects most gyms to be ready for members within two weeks. Executives said they are closing the 100 locations permanently because they “were either out-of-date or in close proximity to other 24 Hour Fitness.”
(…) Gold’s Gym, a 24 Hour Fitness competitor, filed for bankruptcy last month and said its 700 gyms will remain open while company officials restructure. Gold’s permanently closed about 30 corporate locations during the pandemic.
Continue this story at CBS News
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