Lawsuit Accuses Gym Of Aids Bias A Center City Man Says The Owner Embarrassed Then Ejected Him After Learning He Had Aids.

The 12th Street Gym, which says that almost half its members are gay and that it regularly hosts fund-raising events for AIDS and gay issues, yesterday became the target of an AIDS discrimination suit by a man who says the gym's owner publicly humiliated him and ejected him after learning he has AIDS.

Lawyers for the AIDS Law Project, which represents people with AIDS and HIV in public-interest lawsuits, filed the suit in U.S. District Court on behalf of Irving Silverman against the gym and its owner, Robert Guzzardi, a Center City lawyer. Guzzardi could not be reached for comment.

Silverman's lawyers called the suit the first against a fitness center under the two-year-old Americans With Disabilities Act, the federal law that requires facilities that serve the public to accommodate people with disabilities, including AIDS or HIV, the AIDS virus.

The suit contends that Guzzardi took steps against Silverman after finding out that the 35-year-old Center City resident has AIDS, first requiring that he obtain a doctor's note before using the gym and then ejecting Silverman after he cut his finger and requested a Band-Aid.

"We don't want your kind in here," the suit said Guzzardi yelled at Silverman in front of others in the gym's lobby on March 7. "You're careless. You could infect everybody."

When Silverman then asked for the return of his membership dues, the suit says, Guzzardi threw the uncashed check at Silverman and said: "Get out. And don't ever come in here again."

Silverman, a tall, lanky man with a shaved head, told reporters at a news conference yesterday at the AIDS Law Project offices that the incident with Guzzardi "took my hope away. It was like I lost my desire to live."

"I felt really embarrassed, I felt humiliated and I felt like everybody was staring at me," he added.

Silverman, who had worked out regularly as part of his belief that exercise enabled him to fight the disease, said he had stopped exercising and subsequently became ill.

Rick Piper, marketing director of the gym at 204 S. 12th St., attended the news conference and took the floor afterward to call the suit "without merit."

"We believe the lawsuit is factually inaccurate," Piper said. "Certainly there was an incident." He declined to discuss the gym's version of what happened involving Silverman until its own news conference, which is scheduled at noon today at the gym.