McDonald's as living room - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

cmac2012 · #1 02-07-2014, 12:59 AM

Was flipping through a New York Times from a couple of weeks ago - it was in my car and I wanted to read something at the café - ran across this odd story. Seems the Korean community in New York was calling for a world wide boycott of McDonald's owing to the managers of an outlet in Queens calling police to have some elderly patrons removed. Apparently a sizeable number were in the habit of hanging out most of the day, nursing a single cup of coffee. This was leading, not surprisingly, to a shortage of seats for the usual sort of rapid turnover customer. Not sure if member of the loose knit group were politely asked to leave to no avail before police was called or not but this statement suggests that:

Quote:

“This really is difficult,” Lisa McComb, a spokeswoman for McDonald’s, wrote in an email. “The restaurant has welcomed these guests for a long time,” she said, but the endless table sitting “has led to uncomfortable interactions with the McDonald’s workers.”

Members of the community calling for the boycott hold that respect for elders transcends other considerations:

Quote:

On Thursday afternoon, several Korean community leaders hand-delivered a letter to a manager of the McDonald’s franchise at the corner of Parsons and Northern Boulevards, outlining their outrage that, over the past several months, the management has called 911 to oust older men and women who sit for hours hovering over a single cup of coffee. The dispute was reported by The Korea Times and this week by The New York Times.

“Senior citizens should not be treated as criminals,” said Christine Colligan, a leader of the Korean Parents Association of New York, as she stood outside the restaurant, her voice rising. “They should be respected.”

That morning, Ms. Colligan had contacted her sprawling network in the Korean community urging a “worldwide” boycott of the fast-food restaurant for the month of February. In a letter, she attacked what she saw as “stark racism” by McDonald’s: “We will teach them a lesson,” the letter said.

Whether the Koreans, many in their 70s and 80s, were right or wrong to spend their days at the restaurant, arriving as early as 5 a.m. and paying as little as $1.09 for a cup of coffee during their daylong stays, seemed not to matter much to the small but vocal group protesting against McDonald’s before an assortment of television cameras and photographers. What seemed to nettle the Korean community most was the perception that in asking police officers to remove the group, the business had been rude.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/nyregion/leaders-urge-customers-to-boycott-mcdonalds.html

The following update describes a rapprochement of sorts:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/nyregion/elderly-patrons-end-dispute-with-a-mcdonalds-in-queens.html?_r=0

Jim B. · #2 02-07-2014, 01:21 AM

Very possible that this boycott will not gain too much traction outside the NY Korean community because most people simply don't care, and ALSO, because they will be perceived as culturally insensitive and selfish, cheapskate foreigners essentially taking over the seating areas of a private for profit business to get a seat for all day for the admission price of $1.09.

And it would be a lot worse if they are jabbering in their native tongue, and a fair chance of it if they are 70-80 year old 1st generation immigrants that prefer to not use English.

All this is counterbalanced by the "respecting your elders" axiom, that is a very valid point. And many Seniors in the USA that worked hard for years, still have low fixed incomes too.

Though I think OTOH it could be interpreted as "these people" trying to also impose their cultural norms as outsiders upon "normal" Americans.

And ANY restaurant owner needs to "turn tables" in a reasonable amount of time to make a fair profit.

It would be even tougher if it was 105* outside, or-20* with a bad wind chill factor.

Or became a gathering place for a mob of stinking dirty drug abusing and violent homeless.

I have no easy solution to offer this kind of conundrum though.

That kind of fast food restaurant is a magnet for people without a lot of money to spend on caviar, lobster, and '59 Dom Perignon brought to you by waiters in tuxedos.

spdrun · #3 02-07-2014, 01:27 AM

As a multinational corepiration, f them, the owners of the franchise, and their profit motive. Every seat taken up by Joe-sipping old folks is a seat NOT taken up by a child learning to poison himself from a young age.

I shed no tears for a McDumba$$. If every one of those sorry excuses for restaurants turns into a gathering place for violent, meth-addled homeless malcontents, I'd whoop in joy.

cmac2012 · #4 02-07-2014, 02:10 AM

Dude does not disappoint. You make no profit in any of your ventures? I'm not crazy about McD's either but that is beside the point. I like their bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sammich. While on the road, it and McD's coffee is acceptable traveling fare. That's about it for me.

The bigger point for me is that members of the Korean community who are criticizing McD's don't seem bothered by the fact that their community doesn't offer their elders anything better.

BTW, you never did explain over yonder why you're so certain of Amanda Knox's guilt. I'm curious why you seem to have a great deal of respect for the work of Italian police while American police are pigs and nothing else in your book.

spdrun · #5 02-07-2014, 02:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012

Dude does not disappoint. You make no profit in any of your ventures?

I don't make profit passing off processed, toxin-laden garbazhe as "food."

I wouldn't consider their bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich to be acceptable fare as prison food, let alone travel food, but it might have to do if you're stranded on a desert island with only a large shipping container of pre-made Mickey Dee's food for company.

The place is OK for very occasional comfort snacks, but that's about it.

cmac2012 · #6 02-07-2014, 02:56 AM

I'm usually very critical of McD's. I think their happy meal is an abomination, both in the reality of the food and the advertising campaign. A couple of years ago, a blowhard on another forum was claiming to have worked on the ad campaign for the rollout of the Happy Meal years ago and was defending his 'work.' I took one for the team, bought and consumed one happy meal for research. Wow. Really underwhelming. Feeding that stuff to your children on a regular basis? Wow.

So it is a bit unusual that I would come down on their side in this case. I dunno, I see the people running the place and working there as largely innocent as they probably don't get it the way we do. The crowd that's assuming that they can hang there all day on the purchase of one cup of coffee rub me the wrong way.

elchivito · #7 02-07-2014, 07:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012

The crowd that's assuming that they can hang there all day on the purchase of one cup of coffee rub me the wrong way.

Me too, and I detest McD's and everything they stand for.

strelnik · #8 02-07-2014, 09:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elchivito

Me too, and I detest McD's and everything they stand for.

Whatever you feel about Mc D's (I DON't eat there) every city does have a legitimate right to enact loitering laws.

If you put up a sign that says that people may be asked to leave if they stay 3 hours or more, that takes care of people eating, students doing homework, people waiting for trains etc., and old folks with nothing to do.

I stop at different Internet Cafes and do the same thing, but not for three hours. And I buy a mea:l sandwich, pastry, coffee, etc.

I think there's a happy medium here that's possible. If this is an issue with the Korean community, maybe McD's needed to smarten up and talk to the community leaders FIRST. As usual FAIL>

Going into the fray like Mac Arthur against the North Koreans solves nothing.

But as usual, corporations do stupid things first, then get corrected.

Problem is, stupid corporate people never get fired.

Simpler=Better · #9 02-07-2014, 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spdrun

I don't make profit passing off processed, toxin-laden garbazhe as "food."

I wouldn't consider their bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich to be acceptable fare as prison food, let alone travel food, but it might have to do if you're stranded on a desert island with only a large shipping container of pre-made Mickey Dee's food for company.

The place is OK for very occasional comfort snacks, but that's about it.

That would be the weirdest stranding ever. Would you die of dehydration or heart failure before being rescued?

Kicking them out has to be a NYC thing. I'd hold down a Tim Horton's corner for a few hours at a time back in school, and I wasn't the only one who would do it too.

MTI · #10 02-07-2014, 09:33 AM

In Korea . . . the employees can tell you to get the hell out . . . for buying too many fries!

$250 French Fry Feast?

Uh, you want some bul go gi with your order of fries?

Kuan · #11 02-07-2014, 09:47 AM

I don't know about Korean people, but old Chinese people in Chinatown sit around a coffeeshop all day.

MTI · #12 02-07-2014, 10:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kuan

I don't know about Korean people, but old Chinese people in Chinatown sit around a coffeeshop all day.

McDonalds is the Starbucks of "the Greatest Generation."

Jim B. · #13 02-07-2014, 10:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kuan

I don't know about Korean people, but old Chinese people in Chinatown sit around a coffeeshop all day.

Yeah near the Civic Center in San Francisco's Tenderloin (rough) neighborhood the Vietnamese guys in their teens and 20s with nothing to do, hang out all day in the neighborhood sandwich shops .I would hate to think what they must do to get money.

But the sandwich shops are Vietnamese owned and run, though,

SwampYankee · #14 02-07-2014, 11:20 AM

Not unlike every joint that offers free wifi to the younger set. Lots of folks milling around for hours, sipping their one coffee or two items off the value menu. Our local Panera Bread seems to be the place for an older female set to camp out for extended periods in the evening to play what looks to be mahjong. I've been there a number of times, on different days, with DD after one of her games and they've been at the big table in the middle on over half of those visits, sipping their small coffees and teas, sometimes with an empty soup cup or three.

Even with a posted loitering or anti-hanging around policy, most restaurants are likely hesitant to enforce them in this day of social media as long as there are an acceptable level of open seats for the more traditional transient customers. It would annoy the crap out of me as an owner, but I'm not one, so I don't need to adapt to this new phenomenon.

link · #15 02-07-2014, 11:26 AM

Eff em. McD’s is a business and they have a right to make an environment that is conducive for serving their high customer rate. That is a national business model for them with a 40+ year history.

I’ve seen this kind of thing at coffee shops before, where people will camp for hours and pay little to nothing for doing so. Humanity at its finest on both sides of this issue.

Personally, I’d love to own a McD franchise. Wonderful money makers when properly managed. Certainty no worse for humanity than any of hundreds of other business models.