> gyms that turn a blind eye to people not replacing weights
They almost all do, because calling people out will lose you more customers than you'll lose from patrons being annoyed by the practice. It's just good business to ignore it and make the employees clean up at closing time.
This is true in almost all of the commercial gyms I've ever been to. In the more specialized gyms I've never seen this problem until this particular occasion.
In some cases, the customers are interested in paying for a place that will remind them (a degree of accountability).
Think 'japanese school kids clean their school'.
I'm guessing those places will also have exceptionally polite and motivated customers, but may be overly structured and difficult to do oddball things in.
They almost all do, because calling people out will lose you more customers than you'll lose from patrons being annoyed by the practice. It's just good business to ignore it and make the employees clean up at closing time.