Controversial McDonald's closes

From the Queens Chronicle:

A company representative forwarded the Chronicle a statement from owner/operator Jack Bert, who thanked the community for its patronage over the years, as well as his employees, “all of whom have been offered the opportunity to work in our other restaurants,” a number believed to be between 20 and 25. Most if not all have accepted the jobs, a McDonald’s spokeswoman said.

The company would not give a reason for the abrupt shutdown, though Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Flushing) and John Choe, the executive director of the Flushing Chamber of Commerce, offered their takes.

Kim said in the big picture that new restaurants and eateries — many of them well-financed by conglomerates — are springing up in Flushing all the time with access to marketing money, technology and social media expertise.

He said Flushing’s economic success has driven up property values, with commercial rent on Main Street “now higher than what is found in Midtown Manhattan.”

But he also said this particular McDonald’s had a strained relationship with the neighborhood’s Korean community going back more than five years when the owner attempted to keep elderly Korean residents from taking up tables for hours at a time to socialize while he was trying to keep customers flowing.

It's a good time for some bad taste...

It's Friday. I don't understand the obsession that Albany legislators have with pretending to be fast food workers. But this is a great photo caption opportunity!

Just toss the homeless wherever it's convenient

From Newtown Pentacle:

As stated in yesterday’s post, my objections to the placement of this facility revolve around the actual location of it, which I honestly believe to be a violation of the human rights of a vulnerable population.

The Holiday Inn sits across the street from the Long Island Expressway, which produces a standing wall of high decibel sound. While I was shooting the shot above, I actually called a friend, whom I could not hear even though my headphones were in – and she could barely make out what I was saying despite the fact that I was shouting into the microphone.

This gas station with a convenience store is directly across the street from the hotel, and would presumptively fill the role of a supermarket for purchasing food and other existential necessaries. As is the case with such locations, everything you can purchase within is priced as high as the market will bear, and food items available are typically highly processed food stuffs designed for a long shelf life.

I guess the Mayor thinks that microwave burritos are good enough for these so called “Homeless” he’s planning on exiling to industrial Maspeth.

Is it smart to exile a vulnerable population in an industrial zone found along an elevated highway that carries close to a half million vehicle trips a day and which produces an ear shattering din? Is it ok for these people to be exploited by a check cashing location, and to have to make a choice between eating convenience store food, Chinese take out, or at McDonalds? Or, is it just expedient?

Bad behavior at fast food joints

From DNA Info:

A manager at a Jamaica Burger King hurled a napkin dispenser at a group of rowdy teens but hit a man ordering food instead, chipping his teeth, according to police and court records.

The incident took place on Nov. 6 around 11:30 p.m., when the 26-year-old victim was buying food at Burger King on Jamaica Avenue, near 160th Street, police said.

At the time, “a group of kids” was “throwing items around the restaurant,” according to the criminal complaint.

The manager, Nancy Fields, 27, of Richmond Hill, threw a napkin dispenser into the crowd but it hit the man instead. He suffered two chipped teeth and severe pain, according to court documents.

Fields was arrested on Dec. 5 and charged with assault and harassment. She is due back in court on February 3.

From the NY Times:

Several Korean-American groups on Tuesday called for the boycott of a McDonald’s restaurant in Queens where a Korean patron was struck this year by an employee wielding a broomstick.

At a rally in front of the restaurant, the groups’ leaders demanded that the restaurant and its parent corporation improve their employees’ ethnic sensitivity training and customer service.

It is the second time this year that Korean community groups have mobilized protests against a McDonald’s restaurant in Flushing, a neighborhood in Queens heavily populated by immigrants from East Asia.

In January, community leaders called for a boycott against a McDonald’s franchise on Northern Boulevard after managers called the police on several occasions to remove older Korean men and women who had turned the restaurant into a de facto clubhouse, hanging out for hours and ordering only cups of coffee. That dispute was resolved when a local official helped broker a détente between the owner and the patrons.

The new protest stems from a 10-month-old confrontation that is the subject of pending civil and criminal cases.

The patron, James Jin Kim, 62, claimed that the employee attacked him on Feb. 16 after he complained about the slow pace of service at the restaurant, a McDonald’s franchise on Main Street, a busy thoroughfare in the commercial heart of Flushing.

According to a lawsuit filed in April in State Supreme Court in Queens, Mr. Kim claimed that after waiting in line for 10 minutes to order a cup of coffee, he complained to the cashier. “Too much time,” he said, according to the lawsuit.

In response, Mr. Kim said, an employee behind the counter retorted, “We don’t serve coffee to people like you,” and added, “Get out of my restaurant!”

According to the complaint, Mr. Kim then took out his phone and recorded a video. The employee, Rooshi Sajjad, walked around the counter, grabbed a broomstick and struck Mr. Kim’s hand, “barely missing his head and eyes,” the lawsuit said.

And in Bayside fast food news, the Bell Blvd McDonald's location has closed.

A man walked into McDonald's with a knife in his back

From WPIX:

A man calmly walked into a Queens McDonald’s with a knife sticking out of his back Tuesday morning, apparently after an earlier altercation outside.

According to police, the 50-year-old man walked into the McDonald’s on Sutphin Boulevard at about 10 a.m.

While patrons were screaming at the site of the bloody knife between the man’s shoulder blades, the victim was talking on his cellphone calmly, telling his family what happened.

Cops told PIX11 the man was involved in a fight on Sutphin Boulevard with two men minutes before he walked into the fast food eatery.

Tax cut proposed for burger joints that allow seniors to linger (not an early April Fool's joke)

From the Times Ledger:

State Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Flushing) has proposed a new tax credit for restaurants that allow seniors to hang out in their establishments.

The new tax credit is an attempt to tackle a fight between business owners and seniors who sit socializing in their restaurants for hours on end.

The issue was highlighted when a group of Korean seniors were kicked out of a Flushing McDonald’s by police after spending hours sitting in the franchise after only buying a $1.09 cup of coffee each.

News of the controversy spread quickly all the way to Korea and prompted Kim to broker a compromise between the two groups that would have the McDonald’s extend its maximum sitting times during non-lunch hours, which the seniors agreed to respect. Kim said the spat was indicative of a larger problem that seniors do not have enough public spaces where they want to congregate.

“Older adults don’t want to be confined to one place. Instead of telling them where they have to go, we’ll go to them,” Kim said. “This is one of the possible solutions than can help alleviate the problem.”

A couple weeks after the controversy in Flushing, a group of predominantly Guyanese seniors were kicked out of a Burger King in Richmond Hill for staying too long.

Assemblyman David Weprin (D-Fresh Meadows), whose district includes the Burger King, is setting up a summit so that the Guyanese seniors and the owner of the burger joint can reach a compromise similar to Kim’s.

The lunatics have taken over the asylum, folks.

Ron Kim brokers truce in McDonald's war

From the Queens Chronicle:

Korean-American Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Flushing) announced Monday morning that he had brokered a truce between Korean seniors and a Flushing McDonald’s over seating rights.

Kim stepped into the fray and arranged a compromise during a weekend session with the McDonald’s owner, Jack Bert, and 12 of the seniors. From now on, seniors will have extended sitting hours except during high-traffic hours from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; signs will be posted to communicate the change in Chinese and Korean; and Kim will collaborate with area senior centers in offering transportation to and from the restaurant.

Senior centers offer meals, so why do they need to shuttle their clients back and forth to McDonald's?

Let me guess...Kim is going to allocate funding (our tax dollars) for this unnecessary shuttling?

Old Koreans won't leave Northern Blvd McDonald's for some reason

From the NY Times:

For the past several months, a number of elderly Korean patrons and this McDonald’s 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, it’s 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. Officers have stopped in as frequently as three times a day while on patrol, according to the patrons, who sidle away only to boomerang right back. Medium cups of coffee ($1.09 each) have been spilled; harsh words have been exchanged. And still — proud, defiant and stuck in their ways — they file in each morning, staging a de facto sit-in amid the McNuggets.

“Large group — males, females — refusing to get up and leave,” read the police summary of one 911 call placed on Jan. 3 at 2:30 p.m. “The group passed a lot of sit-down time. Refusing to let other customers sit.”

Neither a Burger King nor another McDonald’s, both within a few blocks on Northern Boulevard, has the same allure.

Workers at the restaurant say they are exasperated.

Don't fret, Ron Kim is on it.