CURVES FRANCHISE: Members May Reopen Closed Fitness Club
September 11, 2008 by Sean Kelly
Filed under Business
(Franchise Pick) Also read: Is Curves for Women a Good Franchise Investment?
Franchise Dreams Becoming Nightmares for Many Fitness Club Owners
When Curves for Women franchise owner Logan Chung abruptly closed his two Chicago area fitness clubs, he left his employees without paychecks and members without a fitness program. However, a group of members have banded together to possibly buy and reopen the Elmwood Park location, and Curves International is hoping to find a buyer for the Oak Park club.
According to the Wednesday Journal:
Two local Curves women’s fitness centers closed their doors, Aug. 31. But a spokesman for the company says they’re hoping to reopen them.
“There are several people interested in taking over the ownership of the clubs, and we’re just waiting for them to submit their paperwork,” said Becky Frusher, a spokesperson for Curves at their headquarters in Texas. “Our main concern is for the members, and we’ll get new owners in the clubs as soon as possible to minimize the disruption to them.”
Logan Chung owned the two locations-one on South Boulevard in Oak Park, the other on North Avenue in Elmwood Park. Employees and members say the closure was unexpected, and Frusher says Chung also has not contacted Curves’ corporate office or returned phone calls.
Chung was reached by the Journal recently at a cleaners he owns in Gary, Ind., but he declined to comment.
Carmeline Biscan, a three-year manager at the Elmwood Park Curves, says several employees have yet to receive paychecks for the entire month of August, and a handful of customers also have not received refunds for prepaid memberships.
Renata Mayfield and a group of seven or eight other members are interested in keeping the Elmwood Park location open, which Curves calls its “North” Oak Park location.
Mayfield says they received a starter kit and are waiting on a price to run the location.
“It could be a couple weeks,” Mayfield says. “We were hoping before the end of September that we would have this all straightened out.”
Photo: Bobu. Licensed by Creative Commons.
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Wow that is truly wonderful and I pray it works out for the members sake.
Maybe if you spread out the investment among owners, they will make it back in free membership.
This could be the solution: member-owned cooperative clubs. It would certainly cut down on the turnover.
ATTENTION UNHAPPY CURVES OWNERS
Calling on all curves owners who have had problems with [Name withheld] and Curves International. We all know what a crook, unethical, illegal and immoral business person he is but there are some companies who don’t know who the real [Name withheld] is. He is trying to partner with a company called Silver Sneakers Fitness Program for advertising purposes. Silver Sneakers is a replicable business and if you don’t know who they are you can go to their web site by typing in Sliver Sneakers in your search box. As soon as you are done reading this post please either call them, send them a fax or an email telling them what you think of Curves International and [Name withheld] . We need to put a stop to [Name withheld] from taking advantage of the seniors who belong to Silver Sneakers. I can’t stress this enough so all of you who have joined the group lawsuit and those who wanted too but can’t afford to please act on this now before [Name withheld] takes advantage of them also.
Thank you,
Unhappy
We all know what a crook, unethical, illegal and immoral business person he is but there are some companies who don’t know who the real Heavin is.
Unhappy:
No, we don’t all know this. You can’t go around making these kinds of statements about other business people.
What’s wrong with you?