West Kelowna gym sues former landlord for breaking lease, defamation

Photo: Madison Reeve

A West Kelowna gym is suing their former landlords after they were kicked out of their location this past summer.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Iron Energy Fitness Centre, which is now run as Aesthetic Nation, claims their former landlord, National Storage and Warehousing Inc., wrongfully terminated their lease this past July, and then made defamatory statements to the gym's clients.

The gym, then named Gravity Fitness Centre, entered into a lease agreement with National Storage's owner Daniel Faye in January 2021, leasing 13,235 square feet of space at 104-2476 Westlake Road.

The lease was set to run through to January 2026, with monthly rent starting at $14,337 for the first year, rising over the term of the lease.

On July 20, 2024, Iron Energy received a letter from their landlord, demanding a payment of $72,904.46 for alleged “rental arrears and additional rent payments.”

But in the recently filed lawsuit, the gym says the money owed related to "structural damage to the premises" and not to missed rental payments. While the gym doesn't dispute the damage, or disclose what the damage was, they say their lease stipulates the landlord was required to provide them with a notice of termination of the lease within 30 days of the damage occurring, but failed to do so.

They also claim they should have been given 15 days to pay any outstanding debt, but National Storage only gave them two days to pay up, before they changed the locks and kicked Iron Energy out of the space.

As a result, Iron Energy were forced to move their equipment from the space, pay for storage for the equipment and negotiate a new lease at a new location. They say they were also forced to delay their rebranding to Aesthetic Nation due to hardships in moving customers and revenue from Iron Energy to Aesthetic Nation after the termination of their lease.

The gym claims in their suit that they've been “unable to re-open for business to date.”

But the gym told Castanet back in August that they planned to open at their new location, the former Urban Distillery location, on Sept. 1 and there's no indication on their website or social media that they are currently closed.

According to a Nov. 18 social media post, Aesthetic Nation reopened about a week prior.

In addition to the claim that their lease was wrongfully terminated, the gym says the owner of National Storage, Daniel Faye and his wife Tina-Marie attended the gym on July 25 and for several days afterwards and “made numerous false and defamatory statements about Iron Energy to Iron Energy’s customers.”

These alleged defamatory statements included that the gym had failed to pay its rent, saying “[Iron Energy] does not know how to pay their bills.”

The suit claims the Fayes' defamatory comments continued until the gym's lawyer sent them a cease-and-desist letter.

None of the lawsuit's claims have been proven in court. The defendants in the suit have yet to file a formal response.

Before rebranding to Aesthetic Nation, Iron Energy gym defied public health orders in early 2022, refusing to close during the COVID-19 pandemic.

After months of operating in spite of the health authority's orders, Interior Health successfully sought a court-ordered six-month injunction in February 2022 and the gym shut its doors.