Two more valley Nutrition Rush stores have been shut down by the Southern Nevada Health District.
That makes three closures since Contact 13's Darcy Spears began investigating the troubled chain.
The first came after a Health District hearing in March where Nutrition Rush on Charleston near Lamb was permanently shut down for operating in a way that endangered public health.
Now, it looks like two more stores will meet the same fate.
Nutrition Rush on Rainbow near Lake Mead and on Eastern near the 215 were both closed within the last few days.
Their health permits were suspended pending revocation "due to an ongoing pattern of non-compliance with basic food safety as well as Health District regulations."
The bright green notice displaying all that information is supposed to be clearly posted on the stores' front doors.
But Nutrition Rush isn't obeying that Health District regulation either. It seems they're still trying to dupe the public about what's really going on.
We sent a crew to check things out and they were able to walk right in the open front door of the "closed" store.
Photographer: You're not even supposed to be open.
Employee: We're not open. We're not open.
Photographer: You're not selling product to anybody?
Employee: No. Can you guys get out?
That was Wednesday at the N. Rainbow store, where we found the Health District's closure sign covered up by a BOBO "Buy one get one" ad for products they're not allowed to sell.
Another sign claimed they were closed due to computer problems.
By Wednesday night, they'd removed the Health District's sign from view at the Eastern store.
When we went back to the one on Rainbow, we noticed while walking up to the wide open front door, you can't really see the Health District's sign.
It is pasted on the door, but partially blocked by two rack displays of books and pamphlets.
We saw customers go into the store, but we also saw them turned away.
In addition to what the Health District's doing, Las Vegas Athletic Club is in the process of getting all Nutrition Rush stores out of their clubs.
Nutrition Rush filed bankruptcy after our first story aired and court records show there are problems with that too.
On May 1, the U.S. Trustee filed a petition to convert the case from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7, saying "Debtor has failed to file operation reports for Dec. 2016 - Jan. 2017."
Also, the operating report for Feb. 2017 was filed nearly a month late and "it contained incomplete and erroneous information."
Nutrition Rush has filed an opposition to the bankruptcy conversion and a hearing is scheduled for later this month.
Messages left on the owners' cell phones were not returned. Contact 13 spoke to a woman at their corporate office who hung up when Darcy Spears started asking questions about the stores that were just shut down.
Statement from Southern Nevada Health District:
The Nutrition Rush locations at 1725 N. Rainbow and 9075 S. Eastern had their permits suspended pending revocation.Both of these locations are required to have their suspension notices in the location posted by the Southern Nevada Health District. The notices must be clearly visible and unobstructed from the view of the public. Health District inspectors did verify that Nutrition Rush was obstructing the view of the permit suspension sign at the 1725 N. Rainbow, but the sign at 9075 S. Eastern was conspicuously posted when last checked.Food items offered to the public must be from an approved source. Nutrition Rush could not verify sources at either of these locations for some of their products. Those products are currently on hold, and per a Health District directive, Nutrition Rush permits would be suspended pending revocation if they continued to offer unverified products to the public. Nutrition Rush may not tamper with product that has been placed on hold per NRS 446 or offer any food product to the public. If the products can be verified as safe, the hold orders will be removed and the permit suspension lifted. If the Health District is unable to verify the source of the products in question, the suspension will stand and may result in revocation of all permits at the location.The Health District continues to survey, inspect, and investigate allegations of unapproved product at Nutrition Rush. The three locations that remain in good standing have recently been surveyed and no evidence of impropriety was found; if these remaining locations stay in compliance with Health District regulations, no further suspensions are anticipated.Nutrition Rush has five business days to request a hearing to appeal their suspensions pending revocation. At this time, no request for a hearing has been filed by Nutrition Rush.
