Cheap Membership At Illegal Williamsburg Gym

With most of Williamsburg's condos in purgatory at the moment, some are taking advantage of the empty spaces (particularly those gutter punks). Miss Heather informs us of a new gym that's opened up in the ground floor of the vacant 117 South 3rd Street condo, and the membership is only 29 bucks a month. Everyone wins! But wait, a tattle-tale tipster goes and ruins the deal, saying that while the building's retail space is rented to John Suarez, who is running a gym out of it called Cutting Edge, "there are many problems here."

Miss Heather does the legwork, finding out that, indeed, the building has no Certificate of Occupancy yet, and Suarez tried to illegally install showers and was handed a Stop Work Order after doing so. Oh, and allegedly he's been forbidden by the Attorney General to ever operate a gym. Whoops!

That last part is because a few years ago he "opened" Core Health and Fitness, and by opened we mean he took people's membership fees and pocketed it without ever getting his hands dirty putting together and elliptical trainer. He was ordered to pay back $172,000 in restitution, but this tipster says her friend was scammed and never got her money back. However, he managed to open a gym in a small storefront on Bedford following that incident. This one was also called Cutting Edge, though it didn't seem to blatantly rip off the Edge's logo.