Other Guests Complained About His Girth : Health Club Gives 500-Pounder the Heave-Ho

A man who was trying to take off most of his 500 pounds charges a health club violated his civil rights when it canceled his membership because other members complained he was too fat.

In a complaint filed with the state Division of Human Rights, Ira Shprintzen, 44, contended that his obesity and a corrective operation made him handicapped and thus a victim of discrimination by the Jack LaLanne Health Spa in Tuckahoe.

“They didn’t complain about something I could understand, like body odor. But they said I wasn’t pretty,” he said. “They said other people had threatened to cancel their membership if I didn’t. The manager said better to lose one than many.”

Shprintzen said Monday that his weight problems began a few years ago when a lymphatic dysfunction caused him to shoot up to 635 pounds.

The 6-foot, 3-inch insurance counselor from New Rochelle underwent the first of two corrective operations last October and began losing weight. Doctors prescribed swimming and whirlpool exercises to offset the effects of a two-month hospital stay.

Shprintzen paid a $969 lifetime membership at the Jack LaLanne spa near his home.

The first day he used the club, last Dec. 21, he weighed 500 pounds. He swam, used the whirlpool, made a few friends “and went home feeling better than I had in two months,” he said.

The next day, Shprintzen was called into the manager’s office and was told other members had complained about his size, he said.

Shprintzen said LaLanne has since offered to refund the membership fee or allow him to return, but he said that wasn’t enough.