Replies

You say;

"This is getting old."

yes, by the time I got around to posting a comment, this thread had grown at a phenomenal rate!

You ask;

Did you read the story?"

Yes, I actually did. The italicized quotes I used in my original post on this thread, were directly from that article!

Only later have I gone back and read the other, related story, linked at the site, which gives us a bit different picture of what transpired.

You say;

" The property owner’s representative told her to move her car and that the food would be brought to her.

End of story.

Not exactly...not according to the other article
Grandmother, 75, Gets Cuffs, Not Fries

From the above link;

"Merola had pulled her Lincoln Town Car to an area where drive-up customers are directed if their orders will take some time. She ordered her fries without salt."

And further;

"The arrest affidavit states that Merola's car was partially blocking the drive-through lanes. Parco wrote that he asked her three times to move her car forward a foot to allow cars behind her to pass."

From those two quotes from the article, it appears there was possibly more than one drive-thru "lane", since it was written in the plural lanes. Further, according to this other article, she did not initially, completely refuse to move her car. In fact, it does appear that she did move her car, just not quite far enough
. I've seen this phenomona before, with little-old-ladies in Lincoln Town Cars. Sometimes, they just won't pull all the way into a parking place...for whatever batty reasons batty old birds have for doing so...

The picture I'm getting is that it's possible that the Mc D's that this happened at, was one of those where there is more than one singular drive through lane, at that portion past the "order placing" segment. In those situations, store employees step out through a side door to deliver to the second, far lane, once folks get up to the pickup window area.
So the old lady moves her car, after she's told to do so, but not far enough so that the backend of her vehicle still blocks either part of the second lane, or in the case of there being only one lane, the car still partially blocks that one. Obviously, if she could have moved her car to others satisfaction, then there wouldn't be a problem. That part does look to be inarguable. In fact, I never mentioned that it wasn't...please don't assume that I meant something that I did not say. THAT is what is "getting old" around here!

You say;

"And nowhere does it say it took 20 minutes to get her fries"

And;

She’s in the wrong from that point on. She does not have the right to block a businesses lawful business activities.

HEY! I never claimed that it "took 20 minutes to get her fries", as you imply that I said, now did I? So why are you trying to correct me, for something I never [precisely] said in the first place, even though I did make mention of the 20 minute period, and rightfully enough so, since in both of the written articles, there is mention of a "20 minutes" in which she was interacting with the officer.

In the second article, it quotes the woman as saying,
"And I didn't get to eat my McDonald's, you know?", so that means, either she didn't get the fries, or perhaps more likely, judging from the expanded context of this second article, she may well have recieved them, but was unable to eat them, since she was getting arrested for, as much or more than anything else; popping off at the mouth, to a police officer.

Now go away, kid. You bug me...

Thank you for the link “Pops”. It provided much, much more information.

You said:

“Ol’ grandma wasn’t budging before she got fries “without salt”? One would think that, in less than half the space of the twenty minutes the officer spent trying to persuade her, someone from the McDonalds could have supplied the unsalted fries?”

A strong implication that you think it took 20 minutes to get her the fries.

Bottom line.

If she’s blocking traffic at a business for an extended amount a time all because she refuses to move forward a foot, she’s the problem. Now it is certainly possible the Cop gave her attitude but two wrongs don’t make a right. Everyone else was stuck at the McDonald's drive through defeating the purpose of the special waiting spaces because she couldn’t properly park her car - even after being given direction to do so.

I apologize for being short with you.