Vigilante Gym Justice... You decide.

So, I imagine quite a few of us belong to a gym, and in most gyms are locker rooms.  The gyms I've belonged to have a policy that members can't leave their locks on lockers overnight (otherwise there wouldn't be lockers available for everyone).  However, the enforcement of this policy at my current gym is lacking to say the least.  Does your gym act like Nazi's about lockers?  Maybe 2 times a year the staff will put a note on lockers that are being occupied on a constant basis.  That note states the locks must be removed in 24 hours or they will be cut off.  Then they still give it another 3-7 days before carrying out their threat.  About all the regulars know that the regulations are lax, and a fair number of people will take over a locker knowing nothing will be done for months.

About 2 weeks ago the moon and the stars aligned just right for the staff to tag offending lockers with the removal notices.  Since I go to the gym about every weekday, I was familiar with one of the distinct yet guilty locks that was called out next to where I get dressed.  However, instead of the lock's owner coming into compliance with the rules, he simply moved his belongings and lock to another locker close by to throw the locker police off of his trail.

I've been going to my current gym for about 6 years now, and this has been going on there since before my time.  It hasn't really affected me one way or another, but this time was different.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe I was irritated that someone could just break the rules so blatantly without repercussion while most of us follow them.  Maybe I was just looking for something to complain/write about on my blog.  With or without trying, I was starting to come up with some solutions for this cheater cheater rule beater.  Here are a few options I've come up with.  I'm asking you to help me decide which one I should act on:

1. Get over it, do nothing.  Worry more about my speed work.
2. Be a tattle tale, and tell the staff.  Maybe they will get off their ass and do something about it.
3. Cut the lock off, and put the locker's contents in another locker or the lost and found.
4. Cut off the lock, and replace with an identical lock so that the perp. will have to figure out why his key isn't opening the lock.  Then ultimately, he'll have to ask the staff to cut off his own lock which is what he was circumventing from the start.

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Initially, I was going to post the above scenario and tally the votes.  Then write a follow-on post about what action I took.  But I guess I didn't have the patience for that, so here's what went down.  Last Thursday, I threw a pair of bolt cutters in my gym bag.  After my workout, I cut off the lock and replaced it with another, aka Option 4 from list.  I was a bit disappointed to see this guy didn't keep anything of much significance in his locker, just a few towels and a pair of shorts.  There is a chance he'll write them off and not ask the gym to cut off the lock.  It will be interesting to see how long the lock remains.

The 3 phases of operation locker relief.
(Notice severed loop in middle pic)

Maybe titling this post Vigilante Justice is going a bit overboard, like I committed a crime or something.  Maybe I was wrong to cut off someone else's lock, but I did replace it with an identical one of equal or greater value ☺.  Instead of vigilante justice, consider this a prank between 2 old friends who have never met.  Too bad I couldn't have done this on April Fools Day.