Want To Get Fit? Darien Taxes That

DARIEN, IL – A new fitness center in Darien is asking the city to do away with an amusement tax for gyms.

In a recent letter to the city, Michael Moelmann, owner of the new Anytime Fitness franchise in the Brookhaven Plaza, said he discovered his business' sales were subject to the city's 3 percent amusement tax.

Moelmann said he contacted Anytime Fitness corporate and learned that none of the other 2,300 locations in the United States pays an amusement tax. He said the part of the city code about the amusement tax appears to have been drafted in 1992.

"The purpose and image of gyms in the late '80s and early '90s is drastically different than it is today," Moelmann said in the letter. "Gyms 30+ years ago were seen as places where aspiring Arnold Schwarzeneggers hung out pumping iron."

In the last couple of decades, though, gyms have become the choice of those who want to improve their health and quality of life, he said.

"This is not a corporate-owned gym," Moelmann said. "This is my wife and I putting our life savings to try to make something for ourselves, and to try to help people in the process."

At Monday's City Council meeting, Mayor Joseph Marchese said he consulted a number of other towns and found none of them charge such a tax.

"A health club is a health club. People don't go there for entertainment," Marchese said. "They go there to stay healthy."

The mayor said he would refer the issue to the council's finance committee.

The local park district is exempt from the tax.