Complained I have, about this travesty but to no avail. I am a regular at one of the City of Toronto’s fitness centres, here in Ontario, Canada. Policy changes within the last year have made these fitness centres not as safe as the were before these policy changes. This regression in safety may seem to not matter, but random violence in society is common, and fitness centres get no exception. I have written letters to City of Toronto staff on up to the mayor, my local councillor and Parks and Recreation staff, to no avail.
No ID Required to Use the Fitness Centre
The old policy was pretty simple. Each person can receive a free bar coded badge that they use to enter. As a Toronto resident, every year you show the fitness centre some ID and your bar coded badge gets updated for another year. The system worked quite well.
The new policy, implemented in 2024 Jan, was to completely disband the badge system. You no longer need any ID to enter or work out. While this may seem more convenient for the public, those of us that regularly work out at the fitness centre, and those that work at the fitness centre have seen a couple of problems.
- Cannot identify offending people: If there a violent incident between two people at the gym, neither the worker at the gym nor other people might be able to identify those involved. I have seen multiple incidents where two people have had altercations and one party was kicked out and told not to return. This cannot now happen. Such a “free for all” system puts anyone that works out at the gym in more danger than before. All commercial gyms have some sort of ID requirement, even if only visiting. Gym owners want to know who is attending their gym, but not the City of Toronto
- City of Toronto gym use used to be limited to people who live in the City of Toronto. With no ID required, now people who live in neighbouring cities of Markham and Ajax-Pickering can now work out when they wish, all equipment paid for by the City of Toronto. This is a travesty to Toronto ratepayers. I have heard from others that non-Toronto people are also attending the free classes and edging out City of Toronto residents. This is simply wrong.
- Dumbells and plates are going missing: With no ID required, people are free to enter the gym somewhat anonymously. This has resulted in more theft of gym equipment. This is a problem for regular gym users because we now are short of plates for certain exercises. Since the 2.5lb plates were stolen, we now have to up our weights by 10 lbs instead of the more gradual 5 lb increments
- Whereas before there were statistics on how much the gyms were being used, without badging in the City of Toronto has no clue how often and by whom uses the gyms. Maybe this is unimportant to City of Toronto managers, but it should be important to know this in order to budget supplies, wear and tear on equipment, etc.
- If there is any need to contact those that have recently used the gym, there is no audit trail to do this. Some examples include the detection of an infectious disease outbreak, theft of goods from the locker room, tracking of members, or even a pandemic. Should not this matter to the City of Toronto?
The rationale that I have been told as to why no ID is now required is that this discriminates against people who do not wish to provide ID, and to this I say this is utter bull crap. This is not a grocery store that is open to the public, but a gym, where someone could easily get hurt. If commercial gyms require ID to enter, then the City of Toronto gym should also. They have very valid reasons for asking for ID.
Kids 13 years and Older can Work Out Without Supervision
A new policy change was allowing kids 13 years and older to work out unsupervised. In general, there is no other place where kids and adults can intermingle unsupervised, but now the City of Toronto gym is one of them. While there is usually someone working at the gym, this person cannot supervise the kids that may attend, as the gym is too large and odd shaped. Further there are often periods when there is no one at the gym to supervise at all.
This intermingling of kids and adults has not been a problem so far, but with an unsupervised change room and spotty supervision within the gym, there is a potential for abuse. I do hope nothing goes wrong, but negligence on the part of the City of Toronto certainly does not help.
Some new policies can improve the lives of residents and others, well, they make our lives worse. This new policy has made working out at City of Toronto fitness centres much more risky, and prone to more abuse.
