Gym declares itself a church to avoid closure under Poland’s coronavirus restrictions

After gyms were required to close yesterday under new coronavirus restrictions, one sports club in Kraków has declared itself a shop allowing customers to “test” equipment for a fee and a church offering “religious meetings” to promote bodily care.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people joined a protest in Warsaw against the closure of gyms and swimming pools, arguing that if pubs and churches can stay open, so should sports facilities.

The health minister has, however, condemned “people trying to outdo each other in ideas for getting round the restrictions”. He tweeted that he is “appalled by the lack of responsibility…You are not only harming yourselves but endangering others – especially people from risk groups”.

In a Facebook post on Friday, the Atlantic Sports club in Kraków announced that, “since gyms cannot function, we are opening the Atlantic Shop with exercise equipment…Everyone who wants to test our equipment for a fee is welcome”.

Because the firm already has a business classification allowing it to carry out retail services, “everything is in accordance with the law”, said the club’s manager, Marta Jamróz.

She also revealed that, “because fitness classes cannot function, from today religious gatherings will take place in our club for members of the association called the Church of the Healthy Body…conducted by our Council of Elders”.

Places of worship have been allowed to remain open under the new guidelines, though with limits on attendance. However, religious organisations must be officially registered in Poland, a process that can be lengthy and is strictly enforced. The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has so far failed in its efforts to be recognised by the Polish authorities.

Jamróz wrote that not just her club, but the whole industry in Poland is “now fighting for survival”. “I don’t like legal loopholes, but we have no choice,” she told news website Onet.

“I don’t know why they hit the the fitness industry [when] churches are open, shopping centres are functioning,” she continued. “The decision goes against all logic, I can’t understand it.”

Similar sentiment was expressed in Warsaw yesterday at a protest against the new regulations organised by owners of gyms and attended by several hundred people, reports Polsat News.

If churches and pubs can be open, “why close us?” asked the organisers. “Our industry has 100,000 jobs and they want to shut it down completely in two days.” (The government only announced the closure of gyms on Thursday, with the rules going into force on Saturday.)

“We are the only private industry – along with water parks – that is closing now,” they noted. Gym owners argue that there have been no outbreaks of the virus associated with sports clubs, which they say maintain strict sanitary measures.

The protest received backing from the opposition mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, who accused the government of introducing restrictions “without logic”.

There has also been a show of public support for keeping gyms open, with one online petition calling on the prime minister to reverse his decision attracting almost 150,000 signatures so far.

“Regular activity has a huge impact on the quality of our physical and mental health,” says the petition. “It is very important for us, especially now, when our immunity should be strengthened.”

Some swimming pools have likewise protested the closures. Polish swimmer Otylia Jędrzejczak, a gold medallist at the 2004 Olympics, said she had presented the position of the swimming community to the government.

“There is chlorine in the water, which makes [pools] a safer place than others,” she argued.

The prime minister – himself in quarantine following contact with an infected person – announced the new restrictions on Thursday in response to record numbers of coronavirus cases.

The government has said that, while it want to avoid a return to the full lockdown that kept Poland’s infection rate low in the spring, it needs to take action to limit the current “exponential” rise in cases.

The health minister has admitted that the the government “does not have everything under control”, and there have been growing reports from around the country of hospitals struggling to cope with the growing number of COVID-19 patients.

Main image credit: localfitness.com.au/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY-SA 3.0)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.