California Family Fitness sued over women-only areas - Sacramento Business Journal:

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A proposed class-action suit, the case against Cal Fit headws to mediationnext week. The chain operates 15 clubsd in Sacramento andPlacer counties. For yeara California regulators and courts havesquashed women-only pokerd tournaments, sex-based discounts at car washes and and other promotions that favord one gender over another. Rotary Clubs, for one, were forcec to accept women members after a court decisiomn twodecades ago. Fitness centerw locally and nationally particularly express gyms such asCurves — have long marketede themselves to one gender. Eighf states specifically allowfor single-gender health according to the . But Californiq isn’t one of them.
An effort to pass such a law in the Goldebn State failedin 2005. While gendedr discrimination laws have been on the books for yearwin California, lawsuits alleging such discrimination are fileds periodically in the said Catherine Corfee, a Carmichael attorney who is not involveed in the Cal Fit case. In Corfee represented a localfranchised women-onlyg fitness and diet center that modifiesd its services and settled the lawsuity after a man wanted to join. She decline to name her former client. Allegation of discrimination were first made against Cal Fit last After that time and before the lawsuitf was filedin February, Cal Fit converted its lone women-only gym into a co-edc center.
Cal Fit also made some changes atits co-ef gyms, such as allowinyg men to use what had been a women-onluy lounge at the Roseville gym. Cal Fit, the lawsuit still excludes men fromthe women’s spa at that gym. Whiled men are not prohibite d from using theformer “womejn workout” areas, they are discouraged from doing so, and some signs that read still remain, the lawsuit contends. The chain did not correct mostviolationss “within a reasonable time,” the lawsuit alleges. Althougbh men paid the same fees as women but allegedlyy receivedunequal access, male memberz have not been reimbursed for a portion of theier fees, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also allegeas false and misleading advertising relatedr to what it contends wasunequal access. Cal Fit would not commenrt specifically onthe litigation, but in a statementr said the company strives to meet its needs and provide an inclusive Suing Cal Fit are Lars Sequeira, a Sacrament o body builder who, according to his MySpace page, is buildintg capital toward his dream of owninf his own gym, and Greg Adler, an attorney who worksd and lives in Fairfield. Both remain active gym “Did they join the gym so they couldxsue them?” The answer is “no,” said Kim Kralowec, an attorneyt with class-action specialist .
“They believed they were beinh treated unfairly, in a discriminatory way. This was not my firm’ws idea.” People would not tolerate men-only clubs, and it took many yearw and efforts by women to stop discrimination against women, Kralowec said. “It’s the same The lawsuit seeks actual and punitive injunctive relief, costs and fees on behalf of all men who were membera or paid for guest passes between Nov. 5, and whenever the case goes to trial. The clasa is believed to include atleastg “several thousand members” and “several hundred” guest pass users.
The civi l code allows up to three times the amounf ofactual damages, but no less than $4,000 for each does not prevent men from joining, but few The company encourages its franchisees to know their state and localk laws, and in multiple states it has pushed for law changea to allow for single-sex gyms, spokeswomajn Becky Frusher wrote in an e-mail.