City agrees to Wowie talks

Bill Donovan
Special to the Independent

GALLUP — City officials Tuesday agreed to sit down with the owner of a Gallup gym to try to find some way they could mitigate the effect of the city-owned gym on his business.

The city council went along with a suggestion by Mayor Bob Rosebrough to have Dennis "Wowie" Rosales Jr., owner of the Downtown Gym, meet with acting city manager Robert "Buck" Monday and other city officials to see what could be arranged.

Rosales has been complaining for more than a year that his business has been hurt by the city-owned Fitness Center and is having a hard time competing. He has appeared before the city council twice without having any kind of resolution to the problem.

This time, before two new council members and a new mayor, he had better luck, although some of the same things were brought up as before, namely that it was not unusual for cities to have their own fitness centers in competition with private gyms.

Councilman Pat Butler also brought up the argument that if Rosales wanted to compete with the Fitness Center he should offer something that the city-owned facility does not and Rosales admitted that his gym does provide a personal trainer, himself, while the Fitness Center has no trainers.

The bottom line, however, according to Rosales, is the question of whether he will be able to continue in business with the Fitness Center providing about the same level of services as him and the city subsidizing the losses.

That worried councilman Frank Gonzales who said he wasn't happy about the fact that the city has had to pay, according to a recent newspaper report, $45,000 to make up the losses at the center.

He suggested that the city raise the rates at the Fitness Center to make the facility pay its own way and at the same time that may make the Downtown Gym more competitive.

Rosebrough said that although the Fitness Center was a gift from the Gurley family, the city had to agree to pay off its debt at the time - some $175,000 so in that way it was a situation where the city purchased the operation and should have at that time talked to owners of similar businesses in town.

Rosales said that although the city council refused to do anything to help him in the past, he had sat down with former city manager David Ruiz and talked about a possible solution whereby the Northside Center, which is also operated by the city, would get rid of its weights and the Fitness Center would begin having a dress code but nothing came of it.

"I don't know if we can work anything out," said Rosebrough, "but I would like to see us try and actively explore the idea."