This gym has some incredible staff whom I'm very close with, so it pains me to write this review. But anyone comparing LA Fitness to other facilities in the area deserves a transparent picture of the experience.To start with the positives, this location has an excellent selection of equipment. The variety of machines is strong, and the floor to ceiling windows bring in a ton of natural light. And as mentioned, every LA Fitness employee I've interacted with is wonderful.Unfortunately, that's where the positives end.From an operational standpoint, this location consistently struggles. Equipment regularly sits out of service for days at a time with little urgency around repair. Even simple items such as sanitizer dispensers are labeled scheduled for service for weeks. The gym culture here is also pretty bad, but I recognize that's hard to control.The incident that ultimately prompted this review, however, involves the parking operation.This location uses an underground garage with a two hour parking limit that requires taking a ticket when you enter. The garage itself is managed by a third party parking vendor.I imagine LA Fitness will respond by saying they're not responsible for how the parking staff conduct themselves. However, from a business perspective, vendor relationships are still part of the end to end customer experience. When a vendor contributes to negative reviews and churn, it's worth addressing.For additional context, LA Fitness requires members to leave some form of collateral at the front desk in order to check out cable attachments. It's common practice amongst the members to leave their parking ticket at the front desk when checking out attachments. I do this literally every day and have never had an issue, until today.Today, the front desk mistakenly gave my parking ticket to another member who had checked out cable attachments. They were apologetic and called the parking attendant directly to explain the situation. I was told the attendant had been informed and all I needed to do was let them know that I was the LA Fitness member whose parking ticket got lost, and I'd be able to exit the garage.When I reached the exit booth, the parking attendant had no understanding of the situation and immediately began questioning why I would give my parking ticket to LA Fitness and how the gym could have lost it. As I attempted to explain, she cut me off and said she would call the front desk herself.After several minutes on the phone, she returned to my car and told me that LA Fitness said I was lying and that they had no recollection of the situation. She then stood in front of my vehicle writing down my license plate number before returning to my window to lecture me about how I am not allowed to use my parking ticket as collateral moving forward and that I would not get away with this again.That's not okay.It's unacceptable to be publicly chastised and belittled, and accused of lying, over a situation caused by a breakdown in internal process and vendor coordination.I would happily pay a parking fee of any amount to not be made to feel that way.For a company operating at the scale of LA Fitness, basic alignment between the gym and its vendors is expected.Prospective members should take that into account when comparing options in the area.I recommend the Anytime Fitness in La Canada if you prefer a strong sense of community and are okay with a smaller layout, or Speakeasy Fitness just down the road for more serious lifters looking for plenty of equipment without hostile parking staff.
