An outspoken Quebec City gym owner who openly flouted COVID-19 regulations at his business in 2021 was found dead on Thursday and his death is being investigated by provincial police.
A source confirmed to Noovo Info that Dan Marino’s body was found Thursday morning.
Around 11 a.m., police were called to a home on Dugal Street in the Boischatel sector for a call about a person in cardiac arrest. Despite resuscitation efforts by first responders, he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Sûreté du Québec (SQ) has ruled out suicide as the cause of death and said an investigation is underway to determine the exact cause of death.
Marino made headlines last year after he kept Mega Fitness open in defiance of COVID-19 public health restrictions, even as he was hospitalized with the coronavirus.
An outbreak at the gym led to hundreds of infections from people who visited it in late March, local health officials said at the time.
In May 2021, Dan Marino told Noovo Info that he accepted some blame for the failure to follow certain sanitation measures that led to the outbreak at his gym, but pointed the finger at "five or six idiots" for the hundreds of infections.
