Residents claim that for many months they’ve had trouble sleeping, working and putting children down for midday naps due to noise and vibrations from incessant weight-dropping. Several residents have voiced concerns at city council and planning commission meetings this month. One resident has even claimed property damage.
“You cannot lay in bed peacefully without feeling these tremors inside of your body. It is killing our peace. You cannot relax,” local resident Mike Owen told the city council. “I have children who are continuously woken up during naptime at noon …I’m already seeing massive cracks in my home.”
City Prosecutor Melanie Chavira is weighing the evidence to see if the gym is breaking the city’s noise ordinance, which would be a criminal misdemeanor. (A noise ordinance violation is now punishable by fines of up to $1,000 and up to six months jail time after the city late last year upped the severity of the offense from a civil infraction). But the investigation has hit multiple snags, as residents have had difficulty proving their claims.
CrossFit Horsepower is owned by a group of investors that includes restaurateur and CrossFit devotee Jed Sanford, who has opened local restaurants such as Día de Campo and Ocean Bar & Lounge. Other partners include Dan Wells, who runs the CrossFit Horsepower in Studio City and Robert Bogdanovich, who owns the building, which was formerly occupied by a struggling auto body repair shop.
The investors put about $500,000 into improvements at the property that included installing permanent doors and windows and insulation to deal with prospective noise complaints. The investors also managed to secure a zoning change to allow small gyms to operate in the area, which is zoned for light manufacturing. (The gym is just one piece of Cypress’ ongoing transition from an industrial area known primarily as a home to surfboard shapers).
The gym – or “box” in CrossFit parlance – offers CrossFit classes that emphasize functional strength and endurance training. The gym also offers CardioFlex classes for a more cardiovascular workout. The gym has about 140 members, Sanford said, and many of them live nearby.
Not long after the gym opened in August, residents began to raise concerns about noise and vibrations from the gym, specifically from Olympic-style lifting — an exercise that entails lifting a heavy barbell and dropping it to the floor.
Sanford said residents living next to a commercial area should expect some amount of noise, but that his gym is in compliance with the noise ordinance.
“It’s a balance between business and residents in a dense area,” he said. “There are people of different sensitivities. If you’re sensitive, should you live that close to a commercial zone?”
He said he’s also taken steps to mitigate noise and vibrations by adjusting the programming to deemphasize dropping weights. He said the gym has also replaced metal weights with rubber weights and put mats on the floor to reduce the impact of falling weights.
“We want to be great neighbors,” he said.
The city’s noise ordinance is strictest from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m., when businesses adjacent to residences may not make any noise that is audible from the residential property. At all times, the ordinance prohibits noises and vibrations that are “so loud, prolonged and harsh as to be physically annoying to reasonable persons of ordinary sensitivity and to cause or contribute to the unreasonable discomfort of any persons within the vicinity.”
Residents have said they’ve heard noise as early as 6 a.m. from trainers blowing whistles. Sanford disputed that any trainers at the facility use whistles. By other accounts, vibrations from dropping weights can be felt beginning at 7 a.m. Residents have compared the vibrations from dropping weights to a banging drum, a car with a loud subwoofer and even a “T-Rex” walking down the street. The neighbors have a chain email documenting specific episodes.
“You get a lot of anxiety from it. You’re waiting for that next shock to hit you,” local resident Larry Nakamura told the city council. “You really feel the shocks. You can’t even sit there and watch a TV show because you’re getting constant aggravation from these shocks … People can see water rippling 14 or 15 houses away from the gym.”
CrossFit gyms have faced similar complaints in other parts of the country. In January, a judge in Manhattan ordered a CrossFit gym on the first floor of a New York condo building to close after upstairs residents sued, according to media reports.
By Sanford’s estimation, his gym has been visited by code enforcement officers two dozen times, but officers have still failed to find violations.
In February, an officer visited homes in the area to document noise and vibration during a “weight drop test” at the gym, but the officer did not find any violations and said it’s possible the noise and vibrations in the neighborhood could be coming from other sources, such as the unloading of trucks at J&B Plumbing.
Last month, the city hired an acoustical expert to place vibration meters in peoples’ homes, as well as the gym. However, no neighbors participated in the study. And on March 23, a code enforcement officer responded to a complaint and found that a vibration could be felt in the home, but that it was not at a high enough level to break the noise ordinance.
Since code enforcement officers have not been able to gather enough evidence to mount a case, Chavira on April 1 asked residents to fill-out a form detailing the dates and particularities of their complaints. The form also asked residents if they would be willing to testify in court.
Redondo Beach City Attorney Mike Webb, who oversees Hermosa Beach’s prosecutor’s office, will be conducting a series of interviews with concerned neighbors through May 5. After that time, the prosecutor’s office will determine whether to file criminal charges.
“We’re not looking to put anybody in jail for this,” Chavira said. “We just want the issue to stop.”
