Washington Petition: Give the Health Department a Sauna Mandate

The petition

We, the undersigned residents of Washington, petition the Attorney General and the Governor of Washington to close the sauna loophole in Washington law.

Whereas gyms are regulated in most states as businesses — registration, contracts, and fees — with no sanitation standard for saunas or steam rooms, and no agency clearly empowered to inspect one for mold, test one, or close one;

Whereas our nationwide research found no state that routinely inspects gym sanitation or mandates dry-sauna inspection or mold testing — the gap a Florida citizen hit in August 2024, when every agency he filed with, from the Attorney General down to code enforcement, told him there was no mandate to act on a sauna documented with Chaetomium, Aspergillus, and Nigrospora growing under a bench that had not been cleaned underneath in roughly twelve years;

We therefore ask the State of Washington to:

1. Create the mandate. Give the state or county health department explicit authority to inspect gym saunas and steam rooms.
2. Inspect and test on complaint. On a member’s complaint, authorize inspectors to enter, inspect, and swab/test the room.
3. Close what fails. Authorize closure of a sauna or steam room that fails inspection until it is remediated and re-tested.
4. Publish the results. Make sauna inspection records public, as pool inspection records already are.

Washington inspects the pool in the same building. It can inspect the sauna.