Turlock health club owner says a corporate owner has pushed him out

Customers at Turlock Fitness Club are expressing outrage that the small, independent club is being pushed out by a fast-growing corporate competitor.

Owner Joe Moitoso told his customers Wednesday the club will close at month’s end after 25 years at 2705 Geer Road. Moitoso said the property owner notified him five months ago that his lease would be terminated and he was not allowed to counter the offer of Fitness Evolution, which is taking over the site.

Moitoso, a club owner in Turlock for 33 years, was not able to find another suitable location for his business.

“I think it is greed, it is selfish,” customer Kimberly Trigo said. “I have never felt comfortable in a gym before I came here. I feel like this is family. I don’t want to leave.”

Moitoso and Turlock Fitness loyalists are vexed by the track record of Livermore-based Fitness Evolution, a discount club owner that now has 40 gyms in California.

The company, touting “cheap” memberships at $9.99 a month, has an F rating from the Better Business Bureau, which considered more than 330 complaints against its California gyms in the last three years. Fitness Evolution has three health clubs in Modesto and centers in Riverbank, Oakdale and Ripon.

Moitoso said he was stunned when he was given notice five months ago. He has paid $12,400 a month for the lease and had for years dealt with a previous owner who died last year, leaving the shopping center to heirs.

“About a month before they decided to terminate me, they would not answer the phone,” Moitoso said.

Randy Brekke of Brekke Real Estate of Modesto said Moitoso was a long-valued customer and was given ample opportunity to make a lease renewal proposal.

In a detailed response to Moitoso’s recent comments to the media, Brekke wrote an email stating that terms and conditions of Moitoso’s lease renewal proposal in October 2014 were not acceptable to the landlord, “because it was coupled with a request for assignment of his lease to a third party.”

After notifying Moitoso it was not acceptable, the Geer Road site was first marketed to other prospective tenants in February 2015, and the landlord negotiated and entered a lease agreement with a new tenant, Brekke said.

Moitoso was previously given time to amend his proposal, but was not asked to counter the offer of the new tenant, because “terms and conditions of the new tenant’s transaction were vastly different from anything ever proposed by Mr. Moitoso,” Brekke wrote.

Moitoso sought to lease a store building in Turlock’s Town Center on Golden State Boulevard, but a major tenant, dd’s Discounts, exercised a covenant and restriction to bar Turlock Fitness and its 2,200 members. The store was concerned about competition for parking spaces, Moitoso said.

Moitoso also inquired about another location that did not work out. On Wednesday, Turlock Fitness handed out fliers notifying members it is closing at month’s end.

Moitoso was working on arrangements for customers to transfer their memberships at current rates to Brenda Athletics Club.

Moitoso did not mince words about the company that is replacing his gym. “Are you seriously going to bring in a company like this that screws people over?” he said.

Stephanie Mills, a Turlock Fitness member from Hughson, said she truly believes Moitoso runs the club for the benefit of members. He provides exercise classes requested by clients and was careful about the materials used to clean equipment, she said.

“We would all follow him wherever he goes,” Mills said.

According to the Better Business Bureau, the “F” rating for Fitness Evolution was based on the number of customer complaints, 16 complaints that were not resolved, and failure to respond to two complaints.

More than 200 complaints against Fitness Evolution were for problems with products or service and 100 complaints were for billing issues. Many customers complained about difficulties with canceling memberships after learning additional fees were charged on top of the discount monthly rate, the consumer agency says.

People claimed that Fitness Evolution continued to withdraw fees from their checking accounts after they canceled memberships. Customers said their phone calls to Fitness Evolution about membership cancellations were not answered.

According to the BBB, the company responded that, in some cases, it had no record of the member’s cancellation and claimed that customers did not follow the cancellation procedures.

The BBB asked Fitness Evolution on Sept. 18 to address what it saw as a pattern of allegations, and recommended the company more clearly outline cancellation terms to customers and train front-desk staff to better inform members.

Ten days later, the company told the BBB it had revised contracts to make its cancellation policy “more apparent” and had conducted training with staff on the cancellation policies.

Bill Prescott, vice president of human resources for Fitness Evolution, said Wednesday the company’s Better Business Bureau rating “is not where it should be.” Over a 14-month period, he said, the company grew from 14 to 40 clubs in California and needed to strengthen its customer service staff to handle cancellations.

“We now have six people in our customer service organization,” Prescott said. “We are working very hard to change our (BBB) rating;”

Scores of complaints from customers are posted on a Facebook page called “Victims of Fitness Evolution.” Beside the fees charged on the top of the standard membership, some customers complain they signed up for classes that were soon canceled or were overcharged for personal training.

Marissa Pinedo, of Turlock said she told the staff at Fitness Evolution at Dale Road and Pelandale Avenue last year that she needed a coach to train for a bodybuilding competition.

A man who said he was the fitness manager for the club offered to coach her in twice-a-week sessions.

Pinedo said she worked out with the personal coach once and he was gone the next week. “I asked the front desk and they said, ‘He does not work here.’ They said he just signs people up and leaves,” said Pinedo, who declined to continue with the training.

Pinedo, who had signed a contract and paid a few hundred dollars upfront, said staff told her the cost for buying out of the contract was $600. The 20-year-old, who worked as a waitress, paid the amount and, in a couple of weeks, received another bill for a $300 cancellation fee, she said.

Ultimately, it cost her more than $1,000 to get out of the contract, she claimed.

“They are horrible,” said Pinedo, who sympathized with Turlock Fitness members who are losing their gym.

Prescott noted that other competitors in the health club industry have poor reviews on Yelp and other sites. He did not want to speculate about what happened with Pinedo, he said.

Fitness Evolution was relatively new in Modesto when in 2014 it took over the Modesto Court Room, then a 36-year-old club on McHenry Avenue. The company, led by Chief Executive Officer Sanjiv Chopra, was launched about seven years ago and today has 40 sites from Sacramento to Southern California and from Monterey to South Lake Tahoe.

According to Prescott, the company will open its Turlock gym in May and will improve the interior and equipment. “We are committed to make this the same viable fitness experience as it was with Turlock Fitness Club,” he said.

Turlock Fitness customers said they have no intention of joining Fitness Evolution and wish Moitoso would find a place to relocate.

“They don’t work with you at all,” said Mills, who has exercised at a Fitness Evolution club. “Here, it is like being part of a good family.”

This story was originally published April 6, 2016 at 6:08 PM with the headline "Turlock health club owner says a corporate owner has pushed him out."