D.A. Takes Case of O.C. Women Losing Their Fitness Centers

Orange County prosecutors are investigating a women’s-only fitness club chain that more than 100 members in the county say refused to refund their membership fees after closing the gyms.

Many members of the four Linda Evans Fitness Centers franchises that have closed in Orange County have declined an offer by another chain, 24-Hour Fitness, to honor the memberships because those centers are not women-only.

The Linda Evans chain’s actions violate the women’s contracts because female-only clubs aren’t comparable to clubs for men and women, the members say -- and at a meeting Monday night, Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas agreed.

“We’re going to take your case, absolutely,” he said.

Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Joe D’Agostino said that after gathering as much information from as many gym members as possible, his office will contact the chain’s attorney. If the chain doesn’t settle, he said, the district attorney’s office will file a civil lawsuit.

“To us, comparable means a women’s-only facility or your money back,” he said.

Calls to Linda Evans corporate headquarters in San Ramon, Calif., and a lawyer representing the company were not returned. The chain is no longer affiliated with the former “Dynasty” actress who lent it her name a decade ago.

In a letter some women received from attorney Gary Brett Beeler, representing the chain, he said they were mistaken in believing that the gyms were intended solely for women.

“The facility was constructed to accommodate both men and women,” Beeler wrote.

Members disputed that, however, pointing to a printout from the gym’s website that shows a serene woman in a yoga pose above the words “designed for women.”

Orthodox Jew Goldie Perelmuter, a 22-year-old student who lives in Long Beach, said joining the Linda Evans gym in Garden Grove was the only way she could work out on quality equipment while following the religious stricture of not wearing revealing clothes around men or socializing with men before marriage.

She said she joined the gym with her older sister in February, attending step classes and working out on weight equipment -- scaled smaller to accommodate women -- trimmed in lavender and pale gray and perfect for her less-than-5-foot frame. She prepaid nearly $500 for an 18-month membership. “It was a great deal,” she said. But four months after she joined, the club closed with one week’s notice.

Of the more than 100 women who have contacted former Fullerton gym member Carol Edmonston and filled out questionnaires in a survey she initiated, all said the main reason they joined Linda Evans was its women-only status.

Beeler, the attorney representing Linda Evans, had stated in his letter that it would violate state law to block men from joining. But Edmonston said she had spoken with three Orange County men who tried to join but were refused.

After the meeting, she said it thrilled her that prosecutors would assist them.

“We have the clout of gathering and raising our voices,” said Edmonston, a motivational speaker and two-time breast cancer survivor. “They have the legal clout.”

Before attending the meeting, former Garden Grove club member Jodie Tyo, 56, had assumed that her $707 in unused membership fees for herself and her 19-year-old daughter was gone forever. That money included $149 for three facials she said she never received.

Tyo’s memberships started just two months before the club closed.

Now she has joined an L.A. Fitness gym near her home, taking aerobics classes attended mostly by women so she “can sort of pretend I’m still at an all-women’s gym.” But she misses the friendliness of the trainers and the other women working out.

“Linda Evans taught me to love exercise and make fitness a part of my life,” Tyo said. “Then, without warning, it was taken away. I still get up in the morning and put on my gym shorts, but the pleasure and enjoyment aren’t there anymore.”

Edmonston said it was a lack of integrity in the chain that was pushing her to see justice done.

“I’ll survive without getting the money back,” she said. “It’s the principle of the thing. Things like this happen, but we can do something to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”