Fighting for the Right to Sit at McDonald’s

As published on the NYTimes

Shortly after New Year’s Day, Man Hyung Lee, 77, was nursing a coffee in his usual seat in a narrow booth at a McDonald’s in Flushing, Queens, when two police officers stepped into the fluorescent light of the restaurant. Mr. Lee said the officers had been called because he and his friends — a revolving group who shuffle into the McDonald’s on the corner of Parsons and Northern Boulevards on walkers, or with canes, in wheelchairs or with infirm steps, as early as 5 a.m. and often linger until well after dark — had, as they seem to do every day, long overstayed their welcome.

“They ordered us out,” Mr. Lee said from his seat in the same McDonald’s booth a week after the incident, beneath a sign that said customers have 20 minutes to finish their food. (He had already been there two hours.) “So I left,” he said.

“Then I walked around the block and came right back again.”

The rest of the story of the seniors fighting for their hangout can be read here

What McDonald's has to do to resolve this is to open a Senior Center in the middle of this McDonald store and give out free coffee. Welcome the Seniors. They will be good for business, and the Management and Employees will feel good.