By Geena Monahan—For the North Star Reporter
Altitude Trampoline Park took to Facebook Live on Thursday, May 22, to announce its unexpected closure at the end of the month.
Victor Rodriguez, general manager of the trampoline park, spoke for over five minutes on the live video, expressing his sorrow over the closing of the park that has been in North Attleborough for seven years.
“Due to circumstances beyond the control of the employees and amazing staff here at Altitude Trampoline Park in North Attleborough, I am letting you all know that effective May 31 at 8:30 p.m., Altitude will be closing its doors permanently,” said Rodriguez. “This is something that has come to us pretty quickly.”
Rodriguez appeared emotional throughout parts of the video, and thanked his employees and the families who have supported Altitude throughout the years. According to Rodriguez, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been raised through and donated by Altitude to local nonprofits and charities, and being a part of North Attleborough’s community was always very important to the franchise.
“I am very grateful to have been part of so many families’ lives, for those who have worked with me, for those who have come here and jumped with us and have celebrated with parties and overnights and that we’ve done fundraising for,” said Rodriguez. “It is a very very sad day.”
Rodriguez said he would do everything in his power to try and help his customers, and established an “unofficial” Altitude email of victoraltitudegm@gmail.com, citing concerns over not being able to access his Altitude email account after the May 31 closure.
In his online statement, Rodriguez said he will be reaching out to customers who have memberships and birthday parties booked in the upcoming months to work on getting refunds out.
One such parent who was disheartened to find out about the last minute closure of Altitude is Stacey Krewko, who booked an eighth birthday party for her daughter Izzy for June 15 just two weeks ago. Krewko was surprised to see friends tagging her in the Facebook Live video last night, and said as of the morning of May 23, she still hadn’t heard directly from Altitude.
“We wanted to do it before the end of the school year, because people go away on vacation,” said Krewko. “We booked it so we could get invitations out and all of her friends could come.”
Krewko said she now has less than a month to find a new location in town, something that’s not an easy feat when venues book up months in advance. While she appreciates the promise of a refund, Krewko still expressed frustration at the company taking her money to book the party two weeks ago, operating like “business as usual.”
“Now I have to scramble to find a place for the same day at the same time,” said Krewko. “I’m bummed out about it, but we’ll figure it out.”
Rodriguez could not be reached by the North Star Reporter by email or phone at the time of this story to provide comment on what caused the sudden closure of Altitude.