Posted on 01/15/2014 12:17:56 PM PST by moonshinner_09
Shortly after New Years Day, Man Hyung Lee, 77, was nursing a coffee in his usual seat in a narrow booth at a McDonalds in Flushing, Queens, when two police officers stepped into the fluorescent light of the restaurant.
Mr. Lee said the officers had been called because he and his friends a revolving group who shuffle into the McDonalds on the corner of Parsons and Northern Boulevards on walkers, or with canes, in wheelchairs or with infirm steps, as early as 5 a.m. and often linger until well after dark had, as they seem to do every day, long overstayed their welcome.
They ordered us out, Mr. Lee said from his seat in the same McDonalds booth a week after the incident, beneath a sign that said customers have 20 minutes to finish their food. (He had already been there two hours.) So I left, he said.
Then I walked around the block and came right back again.
For the past several months, a number of elderly Korean patrons and this McDonalds they frequent have been battling over the benches inside. The restaurant says the people who colonize the seats on a daily basis are quashing business, taking up tables for hours while splitting a small packet of French fries ($1.39); the group say they are customers and entitled to take their time. A lot of time.
Do you think you can drink a large coffee within 20 minutes? David Choi, 77, said. No, its impossible.
And though they have treated the corner restaurant as their own personal meeting place for more than five years, they say, the situation has escalated in recent months. The police said there had been four 911 calls since November requesting the removal of the entrenched older patrons.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I will say that I’ve spent more than 20 minutes eating at McD’s before. Of course, that was because they had playground equipment, and my kids would play. And I’d get up every 10 minutes and buy another 4-pack of nuggets or chocolate chip cookies. Definitely not a healthy way to spend time with the kids.
Nowadays, I’m not sure I’d let my kids play in a restaurant play area, I’d be afraid of the germs.
Don't worry ... you weren't alone ...
Except parents who bring kids to the play areas tend to spend money, and then spend more money, as they wait, so the play area makes money for the restaurant.
A senior area where old people can sit while not buying anything would not be that good for business, in a store like this that appears very constrained by the environment.
LOL...next week on "America's Most Toxic" we visit.....
If these oldsters are from Korea they are probably accustomed to sleeping on mats.
“What would you do if bums refused to leave your private property?”
this is an ongoing problem with harmless old men, I think I’d just call the local precinct, NYC also has “311” which is a non-emergency number, but I’m not sure if those people can take any action or if they just give and take information.
Each one knows that if s/he waits just a little longer, their Seoulmate will arrive...
“Whatever happened to hanging out in the mall, thats what oldsters used to do. Had a neighbor that did it every day, go to the mall around 9:30 and just sit on one of the benches and stay there until 3 or 4.”
If my life ever gets to that point, please shoot me.
The bloods, crips and harmless old Korean guys.... lol
I did that once, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. I had some serious acoustic firepower set up in the car (a pinto station wagon) including a pair of really good Electrovoice home stereo speakers in the back. I had a big amp, an equalizer tuned the way I like it. I never listened to it up loud- at a conversation volume it sounded like a concert hall in there.
Except this one time. At a stoplight on Railroad Ave. in Pittsburg, CA. With a thug in the next lane, blaring his crap. This would've been in the late Eighties sometime.
I turned it up to...11. Tone stayed perfect. Concert lasted a couple of minutes. Aferward, my ears felt like I'd forgotten my earmuffs at the range, but decided to shoot anyway.
Priceless.
The restaurant owner/manager should remove all the seating and instruct his employees that all orders are to be “to go”.
-PJ
Whatever happened to hanging out in the mall, thats what oldsters used to do.
when I worked in the all night donut shop we had a woman who would come in every night about midnight and stay until 6 am. I don’t know what the deal was with her. She didn’t seem to be homeless, she never talked to anyone, I was told “don’t worry, she always leaves before it gets busy” which she did.
Agreed, like one of their own homes!
Nothing harmless about the theft of private property.
In my town there’s a MacDonald’s near two of the local colleges, and they have free wi-fi. Homeless people come in all the time and get a free cup of ice water, and then just sit around with it until the students come in to eat and study with their laptops. Then they get in their faces and panhandle, sometimes aggressively. It got so bad that the manager has called the cops several times. But what can the cops do? The cops can’t hang around there all the time, and when they chase the bums off they just come back after the cops leave.
> The restaurant says the people who colonize the seats on a daily basis are quashing business, taking up tables for hours while splitting a small packet of French fries ($1.39); the group say they are customers and entitled to take their time. A lot of time.
Seems like a perfectly good reason to bash cops though. Thanks moonshinner_09.
More shilling by the drive-by to push unionization of Mickey D’s, still in the vilification phase.
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/mcdonalds/index?more=10654680
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