By ANDREW SANTIS
STAFF WRITER

If you look outside the kitchen window of my family’s sixth floor apartment in Flushing, Queens, you cannot avoid the direct view of NY 25A. Every night at dinner I take a moment to stare out the window to watch everything that happens on Northern Boulevard: people jaywalking, cars going east to Long Island and buses shuttling riders.

At the corner of Northern and Parsons Boulevards, you will find a McDonald’s.

With about three booths and ten small tables, this McDonald’s is not a flagship restaurant, yet it attracts a large group of customers that arrive when the restaurant opens at five a.m.

And then they stay for hours.

This McDonald’s franchise made headlines two weeks ago when The New York Times reported that, for years, groups of Korean elders have flocked to the McDonald’s to chat for long periods of time, refusing to budge from their seats.

The franchise’s management and the group have clashed in the last few months as tensions between the two parties escalated. A senior patron told The New York Times that the McDonald’s employees were rude to them and demanded they leave as soon as they finished their meal. One McDonald’s employee said one of the elders threw coffee on a manager who tried to make them leave. The police have been called four times since November to remove the elders from the restaurant.

While community leaders in this predominantly Korean neighborhood accused the franchise of racism and maltreatment of the customers, I believe that the McDonald’s actions were justified and that the patrons had overstayed their welcome.

For one thing, the situation was affecting business. According to the management, the franchise was losing money. Customers asked for refunds or avoided the restaurant altogether because they could not find a place to sit. They did not even have to go into the restaurant to know that there were no seats available. They could see from the street if the group had already set up camp inside the restaurant by looking through the large, glass windows. People looking for a fast food fix could then easily walk up the block to the nearby Burger King. In addition, the elders would only order one cup of coffee or one small order of fries and share it among themselves. One online comment read that they would sometimes take the coffee cups home, wash them, and bring them back for refills.

A sign inside the restaurant stating that customers had 20 minutes to finish their food was ignored by the elderly Koreans. They said the time limit was too short. Twenty minutes is actually a fair amount of time to eat anything at McDonald’s. McDonald’s does not serve three-course meals; it serves “fast” food. Furthermore, the time limit is the restaurant’s policy, and therefore it should be followed by all customers.

Another argument by the Korean community defending the elders is that sitting and talking at a café with friends, without any time limits, is a common practice in Korea, and that the restaurant should be more considerate of their traditions. If this is the case, then McDonald’s will not only need to cater to the needs of the Korean community, but to the entire international community.

There is no doubt the customers were loitering at this McDonald’s location. Should anyone attempt to do what they did at any other restaurant, the management would certainly ask them to leave. The Korean elders must understand that they are not the only patrons in the neighborhood that go to that McDonald’s. Other people would like to sit, eat and chat just like them — except not for an entire day.

More and more restaurants in New York City are adopting seating time limits. In fact, a 2011 Zagat survey found that 60 percent of diners supported time limits. McDonald’s may not be a Cipriani’s, but it is still a busy restaurant chain that attracts millions of customers all over the city.

Although a compromise was reached last week between New York Assemblyman Ron Kim and the owner of the franchise, Jack Bert, allowing the elders to sit at the McDonald’s for as long as they like during off-peak hours, passers-by report that the restaurant continues to be overcrowded.

As I look out my kitchen window and stare at the now-infamous McDonald’s, all I can say about the situation is, “I’m not lovin’ it.”

Andrew Santis, GSB ’16, is an undeclared business major from Flushing, NY.