The City of West Kelowna has confirmed it is holding back the 2022 business license renewal for a local gym that openly defies BC’s COVID-19 restrictions.
Iron Energy Gym announced this week that it is reopening despite provincial orders — issued amid unprecedented COVID-19 transmission — that personal fitness facilities must remain closed until Jan. 18 at the earliest.
West Kelowna told CTV News it failed to issue the gym’s business license renewal on the grounds that it “violated a public health order.”
“The city will review this decision after further consultation with Interior Health,” the city of West Kelowna said in an emailed statement.
CTV News has asked Interior Health if additional enforcement action is planned against the company, but has received no response.
Iron Energy Gym also did not respond to requests for comment this week, but co-owner Brian Mark told Castanet News that their 1,350 customers rely on the facility for their mental health.
“We understand COVID is real and people have gotten sick,” Mark said Wednesday. “So we got vaccinated as owners, asked people to wear masks, do social distancing. We did everything they asked of us. When the new restrictions came out and they told us we had to close our gym, we decided it wasn’t right.”
In a social media post on Tuesday, Iron Energy Gym urged members to come back and urged them to bring their phones so they can record any government employees who might try to enforce the province’s public health orders.
“If someone shows up at OUR GYM and tries to shut us down, we want it BLOCKED across the internet,” the post reads.
Many gym owners have spoken out against the provincial health commissioner Dr. Bonnie Henry, issued closure orders, arguing her industry is unfairly targeted and calling for proof of COVID-19 transmission in fitness centers.
At a Tuesday news conference, Henry said intense indoor exercise, even when people wear masks, creates an increased risk of transmission, especially since the highly infectious Omicron variant now accounts for 80 percent of BC cases
“When we have a lot of transmission in our community, we’ve repeatedly seen the gyms become amplifiers,” Henry said. “I can’t give you every single case that has been linked to a gym, but we can tell you we saw this as a pattern.”
The closure orders were not issued because gyms weren’t following recommendations or guidelines, but to protect customers and employees, she added.
“The serious ones understand that, they’re not putting their employees and customers at risk when we’re seeing the amount of broadcasting that we’re seeing right now,” Henry said.
