WAVE 3 TV Louisville, KY | Well known Louisville spa closing its doors after 28 years

Well known Louisville spa closing its doors after 28 years

By Connie Leonard - bio | email
Posted by Charles Gazaway - email

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - After 28 years of serving Louisville, another well-known local business is shutting down. The Light Touch in St. Matthews, one of the first and largest day spas in Louisville, is closing Saturday. Wednesday, some of the spa's customers called WAVE 3 upset claiming their gift cards aren't being honored. 

Word that the Light Touch Day Spa was closing after nearly three decades came as startling news to many of its longtime customers like Bob and Marie Brossart.  

"My wife and two daughters, they actually love the stuff up there and we didn't know anything about it," Bob Brossart said of the closing.

Through word of mouth and on its website, the closing this Saturday was announced along with the note that customers could redeem a gift card with Splendid Skin Med Spa's hair removal, skin tightening or vein removal. The Brossarts, who say they have been clients for 20 years, say those aren't the kinds of procedures most people go to the spa for in the first place. 

For years, the Brossart family has bought thousands of dollars worth of gift cards for facials and massages, for birthdays and Christmas presents for their daughters and their families. The couple had three gift cards on them when WAVE 3 was there. One showing a balance of $400.

Marie Brossart said she and her daughters were told Wednesday, the same day cards passed their year expiration, that the spa was not going to renew them. But the couple claims in their 20-year experience, expirations were never upheld by the business until now.

"This is the first time we ever heard of that because everybody knows at The Light Touch, they let their cards run over and over and over," Bob Brossart said.

Another customer we talked to outside the business Wednesday also said he was told the business would not make good on his gift card.

"I think we, as an industry, owe it to our customers to make sure they're taken care of," said Denise Willinger, the owner of Serenity The Spa In Anchorage, located on Evergreen Road. 

Willinger, who said the down economy has been tough for the spa industry, told us she was sad to hear The Light Touch, a local spa pioneer, was closing. But Willinger said she is willing to honor some of the gift cards because it could help her business in the long run.

"In the spirit of goodwill for those customers and to get those customers to come and try us, I think it's worth it," said Willinger.

We attempted to contact the operators of The Light Touch for comment twice Wednesday afternoon and were told the owner was tied up in meetings all day. After our story aired, Light Touch owner Brenda Light called WAVE 3 to say she had reached a deal with the owner of Serenity Spa to help customers with current balances on their gift cards.

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