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 know other McDonalds stores in the area that actually encourage Seniors to hang around sipping their discounted coffee.”
I seriously doubt any business would want their entire seating area filled with nonpaying customers from daylight to dark.
There are always about a dozen older men in the McDonalds near my house, but there is also at least 3-4 times the seating in that place as in this one. Doesn’t seem to be an issue.
Remember that McD's coffee is lawsuit enabling HOT!
Put a butt parking meter at each seat.
spacious living...
There is a bathroom around there somewhere
or you can go Gangnam Style... for about $770 a month
A huge spacious apartment...
The McDonalds in my area all have WiFi which would lead me to believe some want people hanging out.
.
Grandpa be rockin’ the iPhone, LOL
Why doesn’t he get a small cup of coffee?
And, I would play rap or something equally annoying to drive them out.
Speaking of: I was stopped at a stoplight with a friend of mine and a brand new, black Escalade filled up with some of the local yout’ pulled up beside us. They glanced over at us and turned up their rap and our car was literally shaking with the base. I rolled my window down and found a classical station on Sirius and CRANKED Pacabel. After a moment, all of their windows rolled down, they turned down their music and all I could see was teens in the back and front seat grinning with their thumbs up. We were all laughing and imaginary high fiving when we pulled away from each other. It was pretty cool.
Funny story!
I grew-up not too too far away from there.
All the signs are Chinese.
I see more English in Berlin than I did in Flushing and that was 30 years ago!
Click the A for a street view. Not real large so I can understand needing to keep the clientele moving.
Yet there seem to be no shortage of facilities that cater to the elderly in the neighborhood. Civic centers dot the blocks, featuring parlors for baduk, an Asian board game, and classes in subjects from calisthenics to English. Mr. Lee, who comes to the McDonalds from Bayside, passes several senior centers en route. One is a Korean Community Service center in Flushing, which recently changed a room in the basement into a cafe with 25-cent coffee after its president, Kwang S. Kim, got word of the McDonalds standoff.No one has come.
I think I have to go to McDonalds and ask why theyre there, Mr. Kim said.
Our Mc D’s is right across the street from our High School. They have signs everywhere that you must buy something to enter the store, loitering will not be tolerated, and you must be eating to use the Wi-Fi.
A few years ago, the HS kids would all hang out here, buy a coke, and just loiter around on the internet in large groups.
Not anymore.
Wonder how many of these bums are here on family immigration visas and are sopping up Social Security payments they never paid for. We were inundated with these in CA.
I remember Flushing NY Queens before the Koreans took over.
Its Korea-town now.
Apparently a lot of signs are Korean these days
My neighbor, rest his soul, who used to travel to Florida for the cold half of the year, used to complain about the other seniors abusing McDonald’s senior coffees by turning their restaurants into senior center community space. He actually cared about not taking unfair advantage of their largesse.
As the other posts pointed there are places that cater to them and they go to this McD’s instead. There has got to be more to this story.
I’m retired....but once a manager asks you to leave you should get off your dead ass and leave!!!!Being old doesn’t give you any more rights than the next guy....getting benefits for being elderly are... GIVEN....not demanded!!!
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