Anaheim Boxing Club Can Stay in Quarters in Church Basement

The Anaheim Athletic Boxing Club will be able to keep its home in the basement of the First Presbyterian Church under an agreement reached this week with the city.

The club, founded in 1979 to curb youth vandalism and street crimes in the central city area, offers weight training as well as boxing and has turned out professional boxers and even produced a state junior Golden Gloves winner.

But recently, church officials were notified that liability coverage for injuries would be excluded from the church’s insurance policy because boxing is considered beyond a “normal” church function. The club would have had to relocate or even disband, city officials said.

The five-year agreement reached this week calls for the city, which runs the club out of the Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department, to provide liability coverage for all claims resulting from boxing and weight-lifting, while the church’s liability will only cover the facilities.

Mike Buelna, the community services assistant in charge of the program, said the club would not easily have found another home for its 20-by-20-foot professional ring and various punching bags and weights had it been asked to leave the church.

He said about 70 youths, ranging in age from 7 years to the mid-20s, use the facilities each night.

The boxing program is working, because fewer than 1% of the boys who join the club subsequently get into trouble, Buelna said.