Planet Fitness has generated controversy for its unorthodox practices designed to discourage hardcore bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts, which it feels may intimidate or make uncomfortable less physically fit patrons. Planet Fitness does not generally offer health club features associated with higher operating costs, such as high-intensity bodybuilding equipment, pools, fitness classes, or child care. Planet Fitness is known for regularly offering members complimentary food items, e.g., free pizza on the first Monday of every month.
[12]
The chain was the subject of controversy in 2006 because of a
New York Times article
[2] describing the public cancellation of a patron's membership (for "grunting") at their
Wappingers Falls, New York location.
In October of 2011, an Albuquerque Planet Fitness refused to let a New Mexico Muslim woman wear her religious head covering while she tried to work out. After signing a two-year contract with the gym, she was turned away and was told the head covering didn't meet the company’s dress code. The woman’s lawsuit, filed under the New Mexico Human Rights Act and the Unfair Practices Act, alleged that Planet Fitness illegally based the decision to deny her access upon her religion, or alternatively upon her race, as she is black, and that the gym had no legitimate or non-pretextual reason to deny her entry. Planet Fitness denied all violations stating that the Muslim woman failed to participate in good faith and that the company has legitimate business reasons for its practice as well as measures to prevent discrimination.
[13]
Starting January 1, 2014, members of Planet Fitness are required to a pay a tax on their memberships as mandated by the implementation of provisions of the
Affordable Health Care Act. The membership fee is not increasing but rather it is a tax required by the federal government. The reasoning behind the tax is due to the option for members to tan at Planet Fitness. The increase is a "five-cent-per-month tax related to the ability to tan under the membership." It does not matter if the member uses the tanning facilities or not.
[14][15][16]
In March of 2014 at a Planet Fitness club in Richmond, California, a woman was wearing a spaghetti strap tank top and capri pants with her midriff exposed. Reportedly she was told that the gym dress code prohibited wearing string tank tops. The Planet Fitness customer agreed to wear one of the shirts the gym provides patrons for free, but while she waited for the tee, another employee approached her with objections to her clothing. Feeling harassed and intimidated herself, she decided to get her money back and cancel her membership at the gym advertised as the “Judgement Free Zone” whose policy bans “gymtimidation.” Planet Fitness spokesperson McCall Gosselin said that criticizing Austin for being toned, “…is not in line with the Planet Fitness policy whatsoever.”
[17] [18]
In April of 2014 a pregnant woman claimed she was told to cover up or leave a South Carolina Planet Fitness. According to the woman she was working out at the gym in a tank top she'd worn on the day she joined. She was approached by a staff member who said she was in violation of the gym's dress code - her belly was hanging out due to her being about 19 weeks pregnant. She was contacted by the franchise owner soon after the incident; the first phone call was "apologetic," but the one that followed he said, "You were in violation, we gave you a t-shirt, there's nothing left to talk about.
Place sounds like a ******* dump.
