Non-Married Couples Must Register as Domestic Partners to Get Gym Discount
Non-married co-habitating couples (straight or gay) joining the St. Louis Fitness Factory, a new gym in St. Louis’ trendy loft district on Washington Ave., must pay $120/year more than legally married couples for the same services — unless they register with the city as domestic partners.
From the St. Louis Business Journal on March 30, 2007:
McGowan Brothers Development has hired Craig Ramage and Jason Barbour to run its new $7.5 million St. Louis Fitness Factory at 1314 Washington Ave., scheduled to open April 15. Ramage, general manager, has 10 years of experience at St. Louis health and fitness clubs. Barbour, director of personal training, has trained NFL players, NCAA All-Americans, and state high school champs. The membership fee is $169, with monthly dues of $39.95.
The gym opened late but just in time as the Gold’s Gym downtown and the Chase in the Central West End, both closed or relocated. With monthly dues of $39.95, the $10/month discount given to legally married spouses means non-married couples pay a whopping 25% more per month than others for the second person to join.
While Missouri and the U.S. Government does not recognize gay marriages, individual businesses such as the St. Louis Fitness Factory are free to extend such spousal discounts to non-married couples as a matter of business policy. Unfortunately, this gym, has decided non-married couples don’t rank.
Shawn McGowan returned a call to me last week after I inquired about their policy, letting me know they expected couples to be registered with the city if they expected a discount. I mentioned other proof such as driver’s licenses or mail with the same address. I’ve since heard from a good source that they are considering other proof of co-habitation besides the city’s domestic partnership registry.
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It appears the registration is primarily aimed at city employees, allowing their partner to have access to health plans (a good idea). It does not appear the city pays for health insurance for employee’s spouses anyway so this simply gives the right for a partner to buy a health plan (also good). The legislation creating the registry, Ordinance 64401, was passed by the Board of Aldermen in June 1998. At the time this was pretty progressive, as I recall. However, in the last nine years quite a bit has changed.
Getting back to the gym membership for a moment, what about couples that happen to live outside the City of St. Louis but that work or visit downtown and want to join this gym? By living outside the city, perhaps across the river, they are not able to register as domestic partners. Of coruse, we are probably only talking about a handful of people anyway so I am not sure why the gym is making such a big deal — many gyms extend their family discounts with some simple proof of co-habitation.
I found one sentence in the ordinance interesting and somewhat telling of the time when the legislation was passed:
“Domestic partnerships registered in any city or county other than the Citiy of St. Louis shall be valid within the City of St. Louis upon the filing of a certified copy of the registration with the city register.”
In the years since a number of countries and now even states recognize marriage between two persons of the same gender, starting with The Netherlands in 2001. But reading the above language I am not sure that if a gay St. Louis couple got married in the state of Massachusetts that the city would recognize this fact simply based on the semantics of “registration.” Other than the obvious gym discount, the other reason to be registered with the city is the right not to be refused access to your partner in jail or in a hospital located within the City of St. Louis:
1. All health care facilities operating within the City of St. Louis shall allow the registered domestic partner of a patient to visit such patient unless no visitors are allowed or the patient expresses a desire that visitation by the domestic partner be restricted.
2. All jail facilities owned or operated by the City of St. Louis shall allow the registered domestic partner of an inmate to visit such inmate unless the authority in charge of said facility reasonable believes that such a visit is a threat to the security of the inmate or the inmate expresses a desire that visitation by the domestic partner be restricted.
So again, would a couple that has had a legal marriage in another state or country be able to simply file a copy of their marriage certificate with the city or would the city only accept a “domestic partnership” registration from a city or county? I think it is time to update Ordinance 64401.
What about people who aren’t married and don’t even live together? They could claim to be “married” in order to get a discount.
This is more about people cheating the system than anything else.
Steve:
Your point is a valid one in regard to the issue as a whole. I’ve worked in sales for periods of my life where memberships were part of the package and you may be suprised of the number of people who stretch “family” and “married” to new levels in order to get discounts on their memberships. I’ve seen people that have the same addres (multi-family) use their address as a means of proof that they all live together, when that was clearly a product of the building and not a relationship. For every good example, there are classic cases of abuse as well.
Regardless of the makeup of a given relationship, as long as there is some way to show that two given people have a binding relationship, they should be able to recieve the same discounts as a legaly married couple.
As always I enjoy the point of view.
Mixed feelings on my part – I don’t like the discrimination but I also don’t like telling a private business that they need to do something – there are other choices and it’s not a life-or-death matter. Bottom line, the business is apparently willing to lose business to stand on a principal (warped or not). It’s be kinda like telling a gay bar that they have to be welcoming to straights . . . it’s just really hard to force people to change their prejudices. The flip side is the whole idea of discounts – why should any class get a better deal than the rest of us? Why should kids eat free or seniors get an early-bird discount? It’s all about getting the most bodies in the door to spend money. And since it apprently won’t be on a level playing field, as a business person, you have to make your best guess / take your best shot at figuring out which group will generate the largest numbers for your own unique situation.
Maybe the boys over at McGowan are taking a note from the scam in the movie “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry”, and are trying to avoid being ripped-off…??? You know someone will try it, especially if they don’t require the legal documentation for joint membership… Sounds less to me like discrimination and more like CYA.
JZ you said exactly what I was thinking: private entities have the right to give discounts, etc. as they see fit. It’s a business decision and people can vote with their feet. Personally, I don’t have a problem with it, since my kids eat free and I get cheap booze. 😉
On the other hand, the City should update its ordinance to reflect the current situation on domestic partnerships. Why should a couple that has already been recognized before the law in one jurisdiction have to do it again here?
And private businesses used to be able to discriminate based upon race as well. This is complete bullshit and the City should step in and do something. This is discrimination based upon sexual preference. Ignoring homosexuals, it is punishing people for not being married.
^But isn’t the point to bring people in the door that would otherwise not come in, and not a reward for having your relationship “officiated?” If a company feels the need to extend such discounts then proof of common residency should suffice (photo id, etc.).
There are always those that will abuse a policy, but the good will generated by a more liberal one will go much further. I would argue they would lose less money by a more lax policy than the number of people they will turn off by playing like a victim of fraud.
If its fraud someone’s worried about – will they require that married couples show their marriage license before geting the deal. I think they just didnt think it out. And so what if a few prople try to cheat the system, the fitness factory will still have two new members instead of one as well as their checking account or credit card numbers so they will continue to withdraw the dues every month from their accounts.
“It’s be kinda like telling a gay bar that they have to be welcoming to straights . . . ”
i just want to throw in a quick 2 cents on this:
i think many gay bars ARE welcoming to straights, but straights (generally) don’t go to gay bars for fear of being stigmatized by other straights (for examples of such stigma, look no further than the mockery that “Chuck and Larry” makes of gay relationships while gay couples are fighting to have their relationships taken seriously). on the other hand, a gay person might avoid going to, say, a sports bar for fear of being verbally or physically assaulted. so if i may offer a supplement (not a replacement) to the above:
“It’s be kinda like telling a sports bar that they have to be welcoming to gays . . . “
I think that many organizations have a bit to go and are a bit behind the times when it comes to figuring out how to build memberships.
Case in point. Partner and I went to Art Musuem to view Napolean’s exhibit. Special membership drive going on where if you join as a member, you get 2 free admissions bringing your actual cost of membership down to 30$. Good Deal for supporting a good institution at the same time. Problem was there was no check off for partner….family yes, spouse yes, senior yes. We checked family and filled in our names. The lady entering it into the system wasn’t sure it would take since there is space for only one name (like Mr. & Mrs but no Mr. and Mr.) We didn’t give it much thought because, hey, we like the Art Muesum and as long as one of our names is on the card for the future, it wouldnt matter.
Two days ago we got our membership cards…had both our names, Mr and Mr on each membership card, so obviously they figured out how to do it.
Two issues here – access and discounts. All the venues discussed here (gym, bars, art museum, etc.) can’t legally deny access, and apparently don’t. Discounts are primarily a business issue and cut both ways – those who “qualify”, benefit from them, those who don’t, pay the price, literally. Like my Daddy always said, “Life ain’t fair.” One can either argue/push for “their” own discount or vote with their feet – just take your business elsewhere. Or, if we all want to live in a fair, perfect world, we need to have our government outlaw all business discounts. Don’t scoff – in Colorado, a guy has successfully used existing state regulations to outlaw “Ladies Nights” at bars (http://www.westword.com/2007-06-28/news/ladies-nights-rip/) and (http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5259533,00.html).
To put it more simply, why should couples, gay or straight, get a discount? As a single person for half my life, I had to pay “extra” so that others could get a discount – was/is that “fair” or “discriminatory”? A gym is not a cruise – on a cruise, a singles supplement makes business sense. In a gym, it costs exactly twice as much to deliver services to two people as it does to deliver the same level to one. And to be cynical and/or pragmatic – do “undocumented” “roommates”, male and/or female, use gym facilities, on average, more intensively than “legal domestic partners”, gay or straight? Most family units I know, who go to a gym, typically have a primary user who goes daily and a more-passive user who goes less frequently, logical grounds for a discount. Take two males with different names sharing the same address, they can be a gay couple or straight, jock roommates – which pair is likely to use the gym more intensively? And given the cost of downtown housing, combined with its “cool” factor, and you find a higher number of roommates in purely platonic situations based on economic expediency.
^
Hmm, why would a gym want to encourage two people to become customers instead of one?
1) Married couples sometimes only have one income.
2) Its a good business incentive to offer family discounts. My wife wanted to join to the YMCA which is somewhat expensive for an individual. We got the family membership because it is cheaper than getting a second individual membership at a different gym.
3) Families shouldn’t be defined by marriage, even if this country started sanctioning gay marriages. A lot of people are staying in long term relationships without getting married these days and I would still consider them a family.
4) I’ve never felt unwelcome in a ‘gay’ business. Mokabe’s and Absolutely Goosed are two places I frequent that have a large gay clientèle, but as a straight person I just think of them as regular businesses that gay people like to go to.
1) Gay couples sometimes only have one income.
2) Subsititute senior, poor, gay, single, kids, military, pregnant, disabled, student, Harley-rider or hoosier for “family” and you have just as valid a reason for offering a discount. Offering a discount is a business decision. It’s also, by definition, discriminatory.
3) By offering a domestic registry, St. Louis IS moving beyond much of the rest of the country. The question here is its “fair” application – why do gays need to show proof while straights don’t? Is the answer what they’ve done in Tennessee – require every liquor store to card every customer, even if they’re 90?!
4) There are many businesses, with both gay and straight owners, that welcome all customers / patrons. There are also businesses that cater to certain demographic segments of the population (gay, punk, upper-crust, hispanic, african-american) that will “serve” anyone that walks in the door, yet make it very obvious that your business is neither desired nor welcomed. And there are shades of grey in between. Personally, I’d rather vote with my feet (and take my business elsewhere) than try and legislate political correctness and forece every business to comply to some definition of “fair”.
My wife and I joined The Fitness Factory and have been working out there for about a month. My two friends ( a gay couple) also joined and were given the discount based on a Domestic Partnership Affidavit. We were required to show our Driver’s License that had matching last names and home addresses, which I am perfectly fine with. I asked the staff about their policy and they do not require St Louis or Missouri recognition of domestic partnership. It can be from anywhere…. West County, New York, Chicago, Tampa, France, where ever. I used to work in the fitness industry, they are actually offering the discount to encourage more families (no matter what your definition may be) to exercise together. And I have to agree with the previous blogger, I have seen people do some ridiculous things just to get small discount at a gym. They lie like crazy, and if other members find out about it (which they always do) it cheapens the entire outlook of the club. I think that the Fitness Factory is doing what they have to….in order to keep people honest and protect the integrity of their business.
Visitation in a heath facility or government run jail are different than enforcing a private business to change their practices. However, any ways that the City of St. Louis can add additional benefits to make domestic partnership closer to marriage should be looked at. It’s also time for the State of Missouri to get in line with this as well.