Yoga Enterprise

Chicago yoga business attracts controversy, criticism

Shanna King was intrigued by the idea of ​​a relaxing candlelit yoga class in a small, low-budget studio in Chicago. Looking for more information, King emailed customer service.

Owner Joe Young replied but ignored their questions. So King sent a few more notes. Suddenly the exchange became hostile.

“(Expressly) please,” Young wrote to King, who provided copies of the emails to the Tribune. “I have real work to do.”

King later included parts of the conversation in a complaint to the Better Business Bureau of Chicago and Northern Illinois in January. She also went online to ask if others have had similar experiences with Young’s Lakeview studio Yoga for the People.

“I was shocked that someone posing as a customer service representative would use that type of language to a prospect,” said King. “It seemed to come out of nowhere and escalate pretty quickly.”

For the past three years, Young has garnered attention and some success by offering courses for $ 5 or $ 10 – even less for Groupon buyers. But lately controversy and criticism have flared up around his business in a way that is especially startling in the world of yoga, which is rooted on the principles of harmony and peace.

Groupon said it terminated its contracts with Young last month, citing poor customer service. On Yelp, where its studios received some of the lowest ratings in Chicago, several reviewers complained that there was no “zero star” option. In addition to offensive language, customers complain of disorganization and dingy studios.

In two other reports filed with the BBB, customers reported that courses were repeatedly canceled at the last minute and differed from what was reported on the company’s website.

The lawsuits against Young go beyond customer alienation. Young, 36, was charged with theft and battery last month after confronting a woman who previously taught for him. Instructor Lacey Whitaker has filed for a protection order against Young.

Also in March, Young was under judicial scrutiny for a year after pleading guilty to criminally damaging property; According to a police report, he tried to kick the front door of a man who lived above one of his studios.

His former real estate agent, Aaron Peirick, recently received an urgency petition to be banned from contact pending a judge to rule on his application for a protection order. In court documents, Peirick alleges that Young sent one email threatening to kill him and another to extort money threatening death.

“I have a temper,” Young admitted in a telephone interview. “But it’s not dangerous. And yes, yoga helped me with that.”

Young said he knows customer service isn’t his forte. “But I’m also the caretaker and the marketing guy,” he said. “Everyone is welcome, everyone can go. I’m probably a lot more controversial than the normal yoga teacher, but a lot of these people are not what they seem. At least I’m real.”

Last year, Young closed his business for a few days and lost some of his favorite teachers. In January he moved from his studio on W. Belmont Ave. 1017 and moved one block to another building; Court records show that his landlord, Dale Grande, filed an eviction lawsuit in August demanding an additional rent of $ 11,500.

In an email, Young said his company “never missed or delayed a rental payment until eviction proceedings were initiated.”

Despite the upheaval, Young expressed hopes for the future. In addition to rebuilding his business at the new 1057 W. Belmont location, he said another Yoga for the People studio will open in Milwaukee this month, followed by studios in Miami and Minnesota.

“I’ve had a rough year,” said Young, whose lower right arm has a tattoo of a seated yogi in a circle. “I can’t talk about how it started or why it happened, but not everyone is who they are in business and I’m no different. I’ve lost a lot of contacts, a lot of confidence in the last eight months, though it is better to rebuild. It will be a cleaner run. “

Before moving to Chicago in 2010, Young attended the Milwaukee School of Engineering and worked freelance in the construction industry. According to the Wisconsin Department of Justice, he was jailed for drug offenses from July 1996 to February 1998. In 2007, he spent four more months behind bars for a parole violation, records show.

Young said he first tried yoga when a friend with a Groupon took him to a class in 2010. He stuck with it, practicing several hours a day, and completing 200 hours of teacher training in Arizona, he said.

He credits yoga for relieving knee pain he had had since childhood and setting intentions or goals in his life. “I have dedicated my life to providing you with a non-intimidating, affordable place to practice,” he wrote on his yoga business blog, Arrest Me.

In several emails this week, Young said he wasn’t paying himself a salary and was working 16 hours a day trying to “spread what I think the best idea on the goddamn planet.”

“I believe in hard love and am not always liked for my decisions or what I have to say,” he wrote on his blog. “I have one goal in mind, to bring yoga to people. I do this for the love of yoga.”

Young opened his first studio, In Motion Yoga, in River West in the spring of 2011. Since then, he has taught yoga in several locations under different names, including the Chicago School of Motion, Blaze Fitness, and Fire Yoga Chicago.

Drop-in classes at other yoga centers typically cost $ 18 to $ 20, but Young’s no-frills studios are often $ 5 or $ 10. “The idea is that if you lower the price, you will get the amount needed to make up for that,” he said.

Young realized early on that social marketing would be key to attracting clients to a little-known new studio, he wrote on Arrest Me.

When he offered 30 courses for $ 30 through Groupon, “it immediately set off a buying frenzy,” he wrote. “We sold over 2,000 Groupons in a matter of days. … The next day I had a queue at the door and a parking problem, but it was an instant hit.”

Lacey Whitaker was one of the studio’s most popular teachers, and Young asked her to run the business in July 2012, she said. In the fall, Young expanded and opened a second studio in Lakeview.

However, within a year Whitaker had parted ways with the business. She said she left after Young went missing for about two weeks last summer, then placed her on “unofficial parole” and suspended two other teachers without explanation.

“I love teaching. That’s why I stayed in the partnership for so long. I loved In Motion Yoga, ”said Whitaker, who now runs her own business, Creative Motion Chicago. “I gave everything for the company and Joe did a lot of things to get me out.”

After Whitaker and several other teachers left, online reviewers reported that the studio’s quality went downhill. At one point, Young closed his doors for several days “reorganizing” according to his website, leaving customers in the dark.

“This is the saddest review I’ve ever written,” a woman named Laila wrote on Yelp on July 8th. “I’ve been going to In Motion for over a year and I’ve loved it. … And then … the “renovation” happened. And now, no classes, no email or phone replies, nothing. “

After Young left the room at 1017 W. Belmont, Whitaker moved in and set the stage for another conflict. According to a police report, Young went to his old studio on February 15 and took away about $ 1,000 worth of a computer, monitor, electronic hotspot, and speakers.

At around 9 p.m., Whitaker and two other yoga teachers went to Yoga for the People to retrieve the equipment. The police report said, “Whitaker said, ‘Where’s my computer, Joe?’” Young then lunged at her, grabbed her in a bear-like hug, threw her against the wall, and then threw her to the ground. When he was on top of her he grabbed her hair and hit her head several times on the floor, “the report said.

Whitaker did not want medical treatment but suffered from bruises on his head, scratches and a swollen knee, the report said.

Whitaker and Young declined to comment on the pending case.

Today, Yoga for the People is rated two out of five stars on Yelp. (A predecessor company, Blaze Fitness, has the same rating.) By comparison, nearly all of the other Chicago studios listed on the site – more than 100 in total – rate at least three stars.

Young said he tried to ignore the criticism on such sites because most of it is “based on half-truth or no truth at all.”

He also stays true to the social marketing concept, even if other studio owners say that it does not fit well with a yoga business.

“Every business makes you want loyal customers,” said Quinn Kearney, co-owner of Yogaview, which has offices in Chicago and Wilmette. “At Groupon you get an influx of people who choose the cheapest offer. It’s not necessarily the kind of people you’d like to flock to the studio; very often it is not good for existing customers. “

Offering cheap deals also makes it difficult to pay teachers, Kearney said. The model could work when people try a course and go back to the studio, “but there are so many deals that people move on to the next and move on,” he said.

Groupon spokesman Nicholas Halliwell said the company had received so many customer complaints and refund requests that it was no longer working with Young. The company also asked Young to remove the Groupon logo from its websites but was unable to contact him, he said.

“While it is very rare, in cases where we fear that our customers may not receive the level of service that they expect from Groupon, we will remove the offers until we are convinced that our customers will. ” have a great experience, “said Halliwell.

With Groupon no longer an option, Young’s website recently announced 30 courses for $ 39.

“I did what I had to do to survive in the end,” said Young. “I had to do some (expletive) things. I don’t feel good about it. I don’t like it. But in the long run, I’ll be helping thousands of people.”

Tribune reporter Alex Richards contributed.

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