CANVAS STAFF REPORTS - Unhappy meals have arrived at a McDonald's in San Francisco.
Homeless people who hang out at the nearby Golden Gate Park used to get 99-cent burgers at the McDonald's located at Haight and Stanyan streets in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.
But the eatery got rid of its Dollar Menu about a month ago. That move, which McDonald's called a simple business decision, means items on the menu are now too expensive for the people who spend much of their day hanging out on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.
Items on the Dollar Menu now cost around $1.50.
"I eat less. I have to get more money," said 29-year-old Nicholas Newhart to The San Francisco Chronicle . He was not happy with the price increase and said, "If I don't have a dollar and I want food, I just end up going to a trash can."
Homelessness has been a problem in San Francisco for decades. Tension between business owners and homeless people who hang out on sidewalks in front of their stores and offices has prompted Mayor Gavin Newsom and some Haight Street merchants to support a ballot measure in November that would ban sitting or lying on public sidewalks, The Chronicle reported.
Some homeless people think the more expensive menu is the next logical step in the crackdown, though the move does not affect other McDonald's in the city.
"That means that the Dollar Menu is a hoax, a fraud, a phony," Blake Edwards told KGO-TV .
Franchise owner Natalie Gonzales said the speculation as to why she raised prices at her restaurant at Haight and Stanyan streets is "absolutely false."
"This was a business decision based on a number of contributing factors," she said.
Customer demand and other factors often lead to franchise owners changing the prices of certain menu items, said Julie Wenger, marketing director for McDonald's Pacific-Sierra Region.
(End of story. My commentary follows.)
Sorry, even in this economy I've no sympathy for the professionally homeless. If they're needing food & sustenance then they should hit a soup kitchen. The fact that they don't may be tied into a refusal to abide by the rules of such places. You know the type of draconian rules I'm talking about, e.g. no drugs, no booze, no sex on the premises. THOSE sort of ridiculous rules.
We have a bunch of professionally homeless folk here in the Dallas area. Some years back a local TV station surreptitiously followed one of them after he left his favorite spot for begging on a Friday afternoon. The guy went home, cleaned up and drove to Louisiana to enjoy the casinos there for the weekend. Monday morning came and he was back at work with his little home made sign asking for handouts. Bum!
That McDonald's' franchise should have cancelled their dollar menu years ago.
One further note, I'll start worrying about this economy when I stop seeing so many fat people. Don't tell me it's due to the inability of the overweight poor to purchase nutritious healthy food. I had one individual try that on me some time ago. Sorry Charlie, I'm very familiar with the price of groceries versus a take out from some ptomaine domain.
You want cheap? Cook it yourself. If you don't have time during the week due to job searching then make up a double shitpot of food on the weekend to last for several days. Speaking from past experience, it'll work just great. Lots of things to choose from too, my favorite was always boiled ham hocks and kidney beans, the wife's was (shudder) tuna casserole. Make a big batch and stick it in the fridge until needed.
Anyone looking for sympathy can find it in the dictionary, it's listed between shit and syphilis.
Some folks are homeless through no fault of their own--usually some form of mental illness. But at least half, and probably more than half, are homeless through their own choice. And that half have a sense of entitlement that's truely appalling.
ReplyDeleteThere is a group, called "The Rainbow Family" that actually promotes and facilitates homelessness as a choice, a lifestyle to be adopted as superior to the "slavery" of American Culture. They are really, really appalling people, who promote drug abuse, prostitution, panhandling, and generally being sponges.
A lot of progressives who have had contact with the "Rainbows" give them another name---"Drainbows", because they will suck up any and all resources they get contact with, and will attempt to move people into and onto people who have been nice to them's lawns in tents, take over porches, and complain that what they are offered isn't the right kind of stuff!!
I agree with u Subvet all the way! Thank u for fighting the fight and God bless you this Sept 11 and always my fellow patriot!! :)
ReplyDelete