In case you missed the news, Equinox its major competitor, the iconic , for about $125 million last week. Equinox is taking over Sports Club property in New York's Rockefeller Center and three SoCal cities—including Beverly Hills. Major renovations for the new acquisitions are planned.
Before I joined Sports Club/LA, I heard a lot of snide comments about the patrons of the Beverly Hills location. Some of the remarks were about the plastic surgery parade, the snotty members and the young pickup scene where no one is really working out.
What I’ve found is, yes, like anywhere else in Southern California, there are plastic surgery victims.
I cannot deny that there are a few members who seem to be advertising their social status.
And it's true that if you come after 5 p.m., the younger set shows up, doing what warm-blooded guys and gals dressed in tight-fitting spandex do after sitting in an office all day: mingle.
However, what I have discovered, overall, is that the majority of members are friendly, down-to-earth, engaging and actually working out. There is a lot of sweat in Sports Club/L.A.
But the most offending remarks I heard and read online were derogatory toward the club’s Persian members. It saddened me to see that people in Beverly Hills, in our beautiful melting-pot village, are acting this way in 2011. I can only attribute it to fear or ignorance. I look at the Persian members and see a warm, highly educated, multi-lingual, refined, family-oriented group of people.
I hope things will change with the Equinox buyout. An "equinox" is when the sun crosses the equator, and day and night are of equal length (twice each year around Sept. 22 and March 20).
Perhaps Equinox will bring more equanimity to our Beverly Hills club? I hope so.
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