Fight-Friendly Village McDonald's To Improve Security By Pretending It's A Bar

[garbon]

http://gothamist.com/2012/03/29/fight-friendly_village_mcdonalds_to.php

Earlier this week, City Council Speaker and mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn called for a boycott of the West Village McDonald's that has attracted three high-profile incidents in the last year. That potential boycott seemed to light a fire under management: the commanding officer of the Sixth Precinct said police met with franchise owner Carmen Paulino last night to discuss ways of increasing security. "What we're trying to convince McDonald's to do, and what I think they've been receptive to, is treating their McDonald's as if it were a bar past a certain hour of the night," said Deputy Inspector Brandon del Pozo.

"What they're getting is every negative aspect of having to deal with policing a bar without the high profit margin of actually selling alcohol," del Pozo added. Other ideas the franchise is considering: hiring off-duty NYPD officers to act as guards, giving police remote Internet access to the surveillance cameras, and cordoning off seating late at night to prevent customers from lingering.

Of course, this McDonald's has been talking about hiring more security for a long time now. Rayon McIntosh, the former McDonald's cashier who used a metal rod to beat up two customers who slapped him and then jumped over the counter last fall, said he and other employees had been asking management to get security for their location for months: "We were begging them to get security. The McDonald's itself is a problematic store. It has a high, concentrated number of people every day. In the Village, it's crazy."

Besides McIntosh's run in with those customers—for which he was found not guilty—other notable incidents included a brawl outside the store on St. Patrick's Day (video of that went viral). And last spring there was an alleged gay bashing just outside the restaurant. "Every business has a hand in the quality of life inside and outside their door," Del Pozo added pointedly.

That McDonald's near me that had the metal rod incident. None of those peeps even live in the neigborhood.

[Malthus]

They should hire that McIntosh fellow as security. That would make people think twice before starting shit.