It was a spin class unlike any other. The group’s instructor, Brick Danger, walked around the group of three women on their stationary bikes, his eyes tracing their now glistening bodies as they pedaled to nowhere.
Being the fitness professional he is, the man had a suggestion: If they took off their clothes, he tells them, it would allow them to focus more diligently on their form.
"I know, I know!" he reassured the exasperated trio. "I was skeptical at first when I heard it."
Soon the only workout attire the women were rocking was their birthday suits.
After a scant few more minutes of spinning, Danger and one of the women became a little...distracted. The other two were still spinning their hearts out, but Danger and the third woman appear to be oblivious, as Danger’s face is buried deep in a region of her body where the sun seldom if ever shines.
As it turned out, this was no spin class, and Danger was no fitness instructor — at least not in the traditional sense. This was the set of the accurately titled Bang Bros production "Latin MILF Rose Monroe Gets Her Big Ass Worked Out By Brick Danger," which also happens to be the group fitness room at the fittingly named ClubX Miami, a Coral Gables fitness center located on U.S. 1, just across the road from the University of Miami campus.
Since at least August of 2017, ClubX owner and operator Cary Sochin has low-key been permitting production companies to use the gym as a porn set, former employees tell New Times.
Allowing porn to be produced on the premises of one's business does not appear to violate any state laws or fly in the face of local ordinances.
David Winker, a Coral Gables-based attorney with experience in real estate law, says he sees nothing on the books that would render the gym’s role in porn production unlawful.
"I don’t see anything in Miami-Dade or in Florida that would require a specific type of licensure or general prohibition on shooting adult entertainment" in commercial locations, Winker says.
The porn may not be illegal to produce at the gym, but the extracurricular activity did unnerve some employees, who say it contributed to an unprofessional work environment and even forced some gymgoers to cancel their memberships when word began to get around.
In the four videos New Times was able to track down, it appears that some scenes were filmed during normal business hours, judging from the fact that people can be seen exercising in the background, their faces blurred.
Sochin did not return multiple requests for comment. Two former ClubX employees corroborated the claims and identified the sets in the porn videos as being Sochin’s gym. A New Times reporter also reviewed the videos (NSFW!) and cross-referenced the scenery with photographs of the facility on the gym’s website and social-media pages.
It's unclear whether the facility is still being used as a set.
“The biggest turn-off for me was they were using our equipment. I’m a spin instructor, and they’re sitting naked on the bikes.”
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Janice Muller, a bona fide spin instructor, worked at ClubX from 2010 to 2019.
One day in 2017, Muller says, she walked into the gym and almost immediately felt something was off. Half-naked strangers — people she’d never seen at the gym in the seven years she worked there — were coming and going from the group fitness room, except there were no classes going on at the time.
The second thing that struck Muller as peculiar was the duct tape: It covered the ClubX gym logo in some areas and obscured the names of fitness brands on various workout equipment. Muller had done the same thing when filming workout videos (SFW!) in the past to avoid copyright infringement.
When Muller spoke with colleagues, she recounts, they told her they’d heard about the gym being used as a porn set.
At first, it seemed unbelievable. But then someone sent her a link to the video. There on the screen was Brick Danger and Rose Monroe doing what porn performers do, only they were doing it on one of ClubX's workout bikes. And then, in an act that appeared to defy physics, atop an inflatable fitness ball.
“The biggest turnoff for me was they were using our equipment. I’m a spin instructor, and they’re sitting naked on the bikes,” Muller tells New Times. “I was like, 'Oh wow, we don’t have enough Lysol and bleach.’”
Spin instructor Janice Muller was shocked to learn that sex acts were being recorded on the workout bikes.
Screenshot via Bang Bros
Included in that same filing were the reasons the couple opted to leave the gym — reasons that had nothing to do with Muller: According to the lawsuit, the couple canceled their memberships after they learned about "inappropriate activities" taking place inside the gym.
"In August 2017, when a dispute arose between Mr. Sochin and his business partner, it became widespread knowledge that Mr. Sochin was renting the gym to film producers to shoot pornography inside the facility," one of the court documents reads. "The activity sometimes occurred during regular business hours."
Another former ClubX employee, who asked New Times to withhold his name owing to the pornographic subject matter, says he confronted Sochin about the porn shoots but that nothing was done, and so films continued to be produced on-site.
"People need to understand that if there are no [regulations] for this actually happening, then why isn’t there?" he says. "What’s to stop me from opening up a storefront and start shooting porn just downstairs from the gym, at the Bagel Emporium?"
