Dear Editor,
If you drive on Seal Beach Boulevard and/or Los Alamitos Boulevard, you can expect more traffic, more crime, possible delayed response time for emergency vehicles, and less safety around the Shops At Rossmoor if LA Fitness goes in behind Sprouts as they are trying to do.
This is not only a neighborhood issue.
Do you come from another neighborhood, drive these streets for business, take your kids to and from school or any other reason? If so, this will affect you!
Dear Editor,
If you drive on Seal Beach Boulevard and/or Los Alamitos Boulevard, you can expect more traffic, more crime, possible delayed response time for emergency vehicles, and less safety around the Shops At Rossmoor if LA Fitness goes in behind Sprouts as they are trying to do.
This is not only a neighborhood issue.
Do you come from another neighborhood, drive these streets for business, take your kids to and from school or any other reason? If so, this will affect you!
Yes, a gym would be convenient, but not a gym from a big corporation. We need to be realistic and compare apples to apples. We cannot compare LA Fitness to Rossmoor Athletic Club (independent gym) a Cross Fit or any other independent or small gym. We have a small independent gym in the center now that has not created a negative impact on our community. With LA Fitness, we are not talking small or independent!
LA Fitness can be compared to 24 Hour Fitness and have the same expectations of a comparable gym. 24 Hour Fitness draws about 70,000 people a month, and about 2,300 people a day–we should expect the same for LA Fitness. This corporation is in it for the money and will need to be profitable, by selling memberships, lots and lots of memberships, even thousands of memberships! The hours will be 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. most days. Its members will be able to come from any other LA Fitness, drawing more traffic–37,000 square feet is not a small neighborhood gym.
We need to be realistic as traffic will increase significantly. Safety will decrease. Crime will increase. More people introduced to the neighborhood and more neighborhood crime. The condo and townhome residents will lose their parking lot and park in front of the homes down the nearby streets, walking from their car to their home at night. Crossing Montecito could be very dangerous for many children and elderly individuals as well, especially with increased traffic.
If this gym goes in, plan on extra time to sit through the traffic, even with extended/more lanes. You then can’t complain about delayed emergency response time either if your house or car gets broken into, it will be too late to say I wish I stepped in to help save the environment of our community.
LA Fitness claims there will be extended lanes added, longer lanes means more cars, means more time to get to where you are going. LA Fitness claims an extra lane will be added to Rossmoor Center Way (by Sprouts and Panera). It doesn’t matter how many lanes they add, if a pedestrian is walking to or from Sprouts to their car, all traffic stops, all traffic on Seal Beach Boulevard becomes greater.
LA Fitness claims they will be creating a happier, healthier, fitter place for all of us. We are not against LA Fitness. We are against LA Fitness in this location for all the reasons mentioned above. We will not be happier with more traffic, less safety, more crime, and putting emergency response time at risk. This is not the right fit for the location.
If anyone is serious about becoming healthier or fit, our community is surrounded by several gyms nearby. LA Fitness on Valley View is only 3.6 miles away, LA Fitness on Bellflower 3.5 miles, 24 Hour Fitness on Katella is only 3.2 miles, 24 Hour Fitness on Bellflower is 3.5 miles away. Gyms with a Seal Beach address: Anytime Fitness, Beach Fitness, Cross Fit and Pure Barre. Why put our community at risk and compromise our environment when we are already surrounded by so many gyms so close to us? Why put these small independent gyms at risk by the big corporate gym, when they were here first? If Seal Beach is feeling a void in their community, LA Fitness should be in downtown Seal Beach.
We are not opposed to a business in this location, we are opposed to a business with such a negative impact on our community.
Please join our community and be a part of our village this Saturday March 18 from noon to 3 p.m in the proposed location behind Sprouts. Come to the “Park – In,” park your car and learn more about the proposed gym. We would like as many people and cars as possible for our planned media coverage. Come to our meetings and be informed!
Please beware. LA Fitness has been deleting all negative comments from the community on their Facebook page. Don’t be fooled by the positive responses!
Join the Coalition Against LA Fitness and email: Coalitionagainstlafitness@gmail.com
It takes a village!
Submitted on behalf of the Coalition Against LA Fitness