ALLENTOWN, PA -- City officials in Allentown, PA, have a little egg on their face after a club that they touted on a city-sponsored blog abruptly shut down.
Daro’s Extreme Fitness packed up its equipment and shut its doors over the weekend, according to the Allentown Morning Call. Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski hosted a ribbon-cutting at the club in March, which prompted a post to the Allentown Economic Development Corp.’s Allentown Good News blog on March 28. The post was titled “Daro’s Extreme Fitness Opens on Hamilton Street with Hot Steaming Deal.”
The “hot steaming deal” the city referred to was Extreme Fitness’s $99 yearly membership special, which prompted Joyce Marin, the city economic development director, to urge readers to “run to check it out.”
Marin said in a comment on the blog after the club closed that she herself had lost her membership fee. “I guess anything that sounds too good to be true, generally is,” she wrote.
Marin told the newspaper that an Extreme Fitness official indicated to her that the club would be refunding money to those who held memberships and that the club closed due to problems with the landlord.
However, a spokesperson with the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office told the newspaper that the club does not appear to be registered with the office. Health clubs are required to register with the attorney general’s office if they accept prepaid memberships of three months or more, the spokesperson said.