Eventually, they came back. They came back to the place where they routinely work out, see old friends and enrich their lives. They came back to a renovated aerobics room complete with brightly colored walls, new mirrors and new flooring.

The doors reopened on Aug. 22 for members of the LA Fitness club in the Pittsburgh suburb of Collier Township, PA. The rest of the general public was welcomed two days later. Everything seemed back to normal.

Normal was the complete antithesis of the chaos that ensued in the club on Aug. 4. That night, a troubled member of the club named George Sodini entered that same aerobics room where about 20 women were taking a Latin impact dance class. With loaded guns in his gym bag, Sodini turned out the lights, took out the guns and fired at least three dozen shots, killing three women and wounding nine others before taking his own life.

Heidi Overmier, Elizabeth “Betsy” Gannon and Jody Billingsley were slain that evening. One of the women who was wounded but miraculously survived was class instructor Mary Primis, who told the women before the class that she was pregnant and that this would be her final night to teach. Primis, who was shot once in the shoulder and again in the back, pretended to be dead by lying still and holding her breath. Her baby was unharmed.

In the days following the tragedy, nearby clubs, both for-profit and nonprofit, offered temporary memberships to LA Fitness members. Neighboring businesses in the Bridgeville Great Southern Shopping Center raised money for the victims' families. All the while, white plastic sheeting covered the glass windows of the club, and memorials were placed outside its doors.

On the morning of Aug. 22, about 30 members waited outside the LA Fitness club. At 8 a.m., the sheeting was taken down, and the doors opened.

Some members said the club was as quiet as a library, even with the music playing overhead. Some members had mixed feelings about working out in the renovated aerobics room.

And some members made sure to check the location of the exits. For the first time, they had to think twice about the level of safety in their gym, an issue other club operators and members are facing as well.

What Could Have Been Done?

The consensus from club operators in the industry is that the LA Fitness shootings could have happened anywhere.

“We recognize the difficulty of guarding against the unforeseen damages of [last month's] tragedy involving the actions of a single troubled individual,” says Michael Sheehan, CEO of Bally Total Fitness, Chicago.

The troubled individual in this case, Sodini, was a 48-year-old single man who expressed on his blog the difficulties he experienced having relationships with women. Sodini circled the 8 p.m. Latin impact class as his target. No motives were reported against any woman in particular.

Sodini plotted the act several times and admitted to having tried it in January and in May before he “chickened out,” as he put it on his blog. On Aug. 4, the day of the shootings, Sodini entered the club three times, once at 11 a.m. and again at 7:40 p.m., leaving the club each time. Sodini re-entered the club for the last time at 7:56 p.m. and proceeded to carry out the murders.

During a previous visit to the club, someone showed Sodini how to turn off the lights in the aerobics room, unaware of Sodini's plans. It is not known whether that person was a club member or a staff member.

Because Sodini was an LA Fitness member and had access to the club, it made preventing this incident virtually impossible, some club operators say.

“We do have safety guidelines for our clubs, and I assume LA Fitness does, too,” says John Craig, brand development manager for Planet Fitness, Dover, NH. “But as we've seen over and over in mass shootings, it's difficult to stop an individual who's committed to carrying out an act like this.”

LA Fitness, an intensely private company (see sidebar on page 32) based in Irvine, CA, declined comment to Club Industry's Fitness Business Pro about its safety procedures and other details relating to the shootings. The company, instead, referred to a statement on its Web site, which reads: “We thank everyone for their support. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the victims and those who are now recovering.”

Most fitness facilities have some sort of security measures in place. Many clubs, especially 24-hour key-card club models, such as Anytime Fitness, Hastings, MN, and Snap Fitness, Chanhassen, MN, have surveillance cameras. In addition to cameras inside and outside its clubs, Anytime Fitness has emergency panic buttons, personal security devices and policies against “tailgating,” where a member hands his or her card to someone behind them after entering the club.

“You cannot enter a club unless you are a member, and you cannot enter if policies are violated,” says Mark Daly, national media director for Anytime Fitness. “Our staff is instructed not to let just anyone into the building. If they don't have the key, they don't get in.”

Many Lifestyle Family Fitness clubs have security cameras outside their buildings, says Lifestyle founder Geoff Dyer. Existing security measures at Lifestyle Family Fitness, St. Petersburg, FL, include requiring a government-produced photo ID for all members and one-day guest visitors. However, even those measures would not prevent an incident such as the LA Fitness shootings from reoccurring, Dyer says.

“Although this is an isolated incident, it does remind our members that there is a lack of security in our clubs,” Dyer says, “even though that lack of security exists in almost all public places.”

Security Guidelines

The last major for-profit health club shooting incident came in 1993 at a Family Fitness Center in El Cajon, CA. Four people were killed one October day before the gunman turned the gun on himself.

Lee Boyd worked in corporate sales and marketing for the club, owned by his mother, Ann Boyd, sister of Family Fitness Centers founder Ray Wilson. Lee Boyd was in the company's corporate office at the time of the shootings. He says the club industry needs to change its safety and security procedures.

“The industry has the responsibility to protect its members and co-workers from these incidents,” Boyd says.

Club operators have to be careful about how they secure their buildings and make members feel safe, experts say. Too many security measures may make members feel insecure, perhaps causing them to switch to another club, therefore costing a club some of its business.

The configuration of most clubs assumes staff will be on hand to ensure safety, and relies on channeling incoming and exiting members, plus an expectation of normal behavior among those members, says Hervey Lavoie, president of the architectural firm Ohlson Lavoie Collaborative, Denver. With that in mind, Lavoie says clubs are not likely to take their access control measures to the level of airports or large sports stadiums and arenas, especially since some front desk staff members in clubs are low-paid employees.

Next page: LA Fitness Remains a Quiet, Successful Company

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