A GYM in Futian District closed its doors last month because it didn’t have a fire-control license, leaving its members with unused prepaid cards, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

    The Shenzhen Consumer Council’s spokesperson said that they had received five complaints against the gym this year, but they couldn’t do anything about it as the gym was already closed.

    A customer, surnamed Tao, said that he had paid for four annual cards at the gym in Chegongmiao, with each costing him around 5,000 yuan (US$725), while he had also paid 40,000 yuan for 100 one-on-one training classes.

    He said that the gym’s power supply was cut at the end of last year purportedly because its fire-control facilities were below standard. Later the gym closed its doors and its staff members told him that the gym would reopen within two weeks, but at present it remains closed, Tao said.

    Another customer, surnamed Wang, said that she had also bought a 5,000-yuan annual card at the gym in March last year. A staffer at the gym told her that the money remaining on the annual card could be refunded, but then the staffer quit the job and another staff member said that they wouldn’t return her money.

    The gym’s staffers told customers that they could still use their prepaid cards at another gym run by the same company in Luohu District. But both Wang and Tao said that such a solution was unacceptable as they chose the gym in Chegongmiao because of its proximity to where they live and work.

    Futian police said that the gym was opened in an industrial building without getting a proper license from fire-control authorities. As a bar located in the same building was closed down for the same reason, the gym’s executives decided to suspend business before obtaining the license.

    According to online information, the gym is run by a Shenzhen-based company founded in July 2015. The company’s legal representative, Zhang Zhihai, said that the company had rented a floor in the industrial building in 2015 and turned it into a gym. However, there was a citywide fire-control inspection at the end of last year.

    “The fire-control authorities said that the building was in the middle of procedures to be transformed from industrial use into commercial use, and we were told to suspend business and wait,” Zhang said, adding that he didn’t know when the gym would be able to reopen.

    According to Zhang, the gym has around 400 members and the company has promised to offer extra free classes to them after the gym resumes business. He said that the company still had to pay rent for the space after the gym was closed, and if it couldn’t carry on, the company would sell off assets to compensate its customers.

    The council’s spokesperson said that consumers should not pay too much for prepaid cards, and there should be a third party to supervise the money on prepaid cards sold by merchants to ensure that the money would only be paid to merchants after the consumers use the cards.

    (Zhang Yang)