Bay Area Gold’s Gym Franchises are bolting from the corporate parent over CEO’s donation to anti-gay causes.

The news that billionaire Robert Rowling, the CEO of  TRT Holdings, the parent company of the Gold’s Gym franchise of health clubs, had donated $2million to anti-gay, conservative political action group, American Crossroads which has ties to Republican Party kingpin Karl Rove, sent shockwaves across the LGBTQ community last week. Gold’s Gym has long marketed itself to the LGBTQ community as queer friendly and earned millions of dollars of profit from its queer members. Calls for boycotts against the national chain began almost immediately, but with some members of the community pointing out that the Gold’s Gym brand is a franchised company meaning that independent local business owners lease the name and marketing from the parent company, much like a local fast food restaurant leases the name/marketing/products from McDonald’s or Burger King. A boycott against Gold’s Gym would hurt the local business community as much, or more than the parent. But, some local business owners are standing up to the parent and supporting the members of their community.

According to a report in The Huffington Post, four San Francisco Bay area franchises will terminate their deal with Gold’s Gym once their current contract expires in September of 2012. Don Dickerson, the director of operations for the Bay Area Gold’s Gyms, issued this statement:

We were as surprised by [CEO] Mr. [Robert] Rowling’s action as anyone but because our company believes in and lives up to the ideals of equality for all we are going to take the following actions:
1: Our contractual obligation with Gold’s Gym expires on September 15th, 2012 and on or prior to that date (our legal counsel is reviewing our options) we will leave the Gold’s Gym brand. It is a major initiative to create a new brand and leave Gold’s Gym which has been our identity for over 20 years but we will begin that process today.

2: For every dollar we pay Gold’s Gym in franchise fees we will donate an equal or greater amount to LGBT charities. While we donate much more than this to charities and community groups that support the LGBT community we want to make a commitment to match or exceed this amount until our relationship with Gold’s Gym can be severed.

3: Our management and staff will continue to support LGBT causes in every way possible and we will use our business as a platform to fight for change and equality for everyone. We have always taken great pride in being a leader in the LGBT community and we will continue to.

The Hollywood California franchise is apparently NOT following suit, despite the fact it has a large LGBTQ clientale. They released this statement:

“has been locally owned and operated for over twenty years and is NOT owned or operated by TRT. … While certainly the happenings reported recently are disappointing, disheartening, and inconsistent with our beliefs, Gold’s Gym Hollywood has always acted independently with our only responsibilities and allegiances to our members and the communities we serve.”

No word yet from Seattle’s Capitol Hill Gold’s Gym or the one downtown on their future plans.

Readers, are any of you members of Gold’s and do you plan on leaving the gym? Let us know.

– Michael Strangeways