A McDonalds in the Queens has a Korean people problem

[mota bhai 2,675]

For the past several months, a number of elderly Korean residents 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); members of the group say they are customers and entitled to take their time. A lot of time.

...

And although 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 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, has the same allure.

Workers at the restaurant say they are exasperated.

"It's a McDonald's," said Martha Anderson, the general manager, "not a senior center." She said she called the police after the group refused to budge and other customers asked for refunds because there was nowhere to sit.

...

The McDonald's looks like any other. Few among the crowd there on a recent Saturday said they even liked the food.

"We prefer our own Korean food," said Hoick Choi, 76, a pastor at New Power Presbyterian Church, who comes about once a week.

...

There seems 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. Lee, en route to McDonald's, passes several senior centers. One is a Korean Community Service center, 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 McDonald's standoff.

No one has come.

"I think I have to go to McDonald's and ask why they're there," Kim said.

Outside the McDonald's on Saturday, Sang Yong Park, 76, and his friend, Il Ho Park, 76, tried to explain what drew them there. They come every day to gossip, chat about politics back home and in their adopted land, hauling themselves up from the banquettes with their canes to step outside for short cigarillo breaks. And they could not say why they keep coming back - after a short walk around the block to blow off steam - every time the officers remove them. They said they had each been ousted three times so far.

The two men, however, knew what they would do next time. Sang Yong Park said he would not budge, but his friend said he would dutifully obey any police order, just as he always has.

"I will just listen to them," he said. "But I will come back inside after they leave."

http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/tussle-at-queens-mcdonald-s-over-a-place-to-sit-and-sit-471373

[Peikko 1,575]

That's obtuse and rather irritating. I don't think they have the moral right to obstruct business in this way. Stubborn old codgers.

[mota bhai 2,675]

This isn't the first time I've heard of old Korean people in NYC being a PITA.

[Peikko 1,575]

This isn't the first time I've heard of old Korean people in NYC being a PITA.

Old people are difficult sometimes. If they have easy to access alternatives and have no reason for meeting in that spot, the police should arrest them for antisocial behaviour, if there is such an ordinance.

[Danno 1,228]

If it comes down to it and it looks like it has, they should just refuse them service, which removes their excuse to loiter.

[Peikko 1,575]

If it comes down to it and it looks like it has, they should just refuse them service, which removes their excuse to loiter.

I do not believe you actually read the article, if you had, you would not make this statement.