At 8:30 Friday morning, Kerry Johnson was working out on a treadmill at Aspire Health and Fitness in Redmond when a Deschutes County Sheriff’s deputy politely asked her to leave the facility.

”He said, ‘I have to ask you to leave because this company is here to repossess the equipment and it’s a liability to have you in the building,’” Johnson said. ”I didn’t get to shower or anything.”

Johnson, 25, has been a member of the gym for about a year and became suspicious of its business practices after it announced plans to open a Bend location and took four months longer than it said it would to open.

Originally, Aspire owners told members the second location on Twin Knolls Drive in Bend would open in November.

The date kept getting pushed back, Johnson said, until the new location finally opened in early February.

”The story they are giving me now (about the Bend location) is they still don’t have all of their equipment,” Johnson said. ”They opened with only treadmills and dumbbells and they get a few more pieces each week.”

Johnson said after the incident, the first thing she did was call the billing company the gym uses, National Fitness, and asked them to cancel the monthly withdrawal the company takes from her checking account to pay her Aspire membership.

She then e-mailed friends who are also members to let them know what had happened. ”I am still in shock,” Johnson said two hours after leaving the gym. ”There were moving trucks out in the parking lots with big guys ready to gut the place.”

According to the Deschutes County Sheriff’s office, the officers were at the gym executing a court order. The department would not comment further on the incident.

In December, Dane Nielsen, who sold Aspire its fitness equipment, filed an order with the Deschutes County Court in December that states Aspire, ”is restrained from injuring, destroying, transferring, removing, encumbering, selling or otherwise disposing of the property.”

Nielsen told The Bulletin in January that he filed the restraining order because he was afraid the company would take off with the equipment in the middle of the night.

According to the complaint, Aspire is in default for failing to make payments between June, 2003 and the present of $15,500 plus 8.5 percent interest … the full balance owing has been and hereby is accelerated and that amount owing is $20,347.50.”

A written demand to pay the debt was sent to Aspire’s registered agent, on Nov. 11, but it did not result in payment, according to the order filed with the county.

Paul Heatherman, the Bend attorney representing Nielsen, said his client could not wait any longer for Aspire to make payments on the equipment.

”The debtor has a bill over seven months delinquent and my client has suffered as a result,” Heatherman said.

Heatherman said as of Friday, he estimated the gym owed his client around $28,000 in default payments on the gym equipment.

”The other side is trying to say the order is invalid,” Heatherman said. ”The debt is clearly owed.”

Vince Engle, the manager of Fitco LLC based in Utah, which owns Aspire, said in a statement that the company was ”astonished” by Friday’s action.

”Neither Aspire nor it’s attorney were notified that this action was being pursued and we were engaging in a good faith settlement discussion,” the statement said. ”I spoke to Mr. Nielsen today and offered to settle the dispute, but was denied any reasonable opportunity to satisfy this complaint.”

Engle also apologized to members of the club for the inconvenience and said that he would try to resolve the issues immediately to re-open the Redmond facility.

Despite the disruption at the Redmond site, the Aspire in Bend had planned to stay open until 8 p.m. on Friday, an employee said.

Gyms closing in Central Oregon because of financial troubles have been a common occurrence in the past few years.

In October 2002, Bend Fitness closed without warning after one of the partners repossessed the club’s exercise equipment in a late-night raid.

In January 2002, World Gym in the Old Mill District filed for bankruptcy, closing its doors without refunding members’ money.

And just last July, the owner of Gold’s Gym filed for bankruptcy. In September, Gold’s moved its Bend location without informing any of its members of the move.

Kristy Hessman can be reached at 541-383-0350 or khessman@bendbulletin.com.