A London gym owner has been fined £67,000 for staying open during the UK’s second national lockdown.
Zone Gym was issued several fines by Haringey Council for failing to close during the lockdown which legally forbids gyms as well as non-essential retail, restaurants, bars, clubs and leisure facilities from remaining open due to the prevalence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On top of the £67,000 fine, Haringey Council are also looking to recoup their £7,500 court costs.
The owner of the gym, Andreas Michili, explained his reasoning for keeping his gym open to PA news agency.
Andreas said, “There were a lot of reasons why I didn’t close. I couldn’t actually find a reason why to not keep it open, other than there was legislation in place.”
He added that keeping his gym open was “the right thing to do socially, morally and scientifically”.
Describing the day that his gym was forced closed by the police, Andreas added, “The police were manned outside the gates and they were rotating shifts every two hours. A few people managed to climb over walls and shift through little gaps to get in, but it was pretty much empty. It was a bit of a pointless thing to do keeping the gym open while it was basically empty.”
The current UK national lockdown is set to end on the 2nd of December and it is hoped that gyms as well as other leisure facilities will legally reopen then.
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