Nicely said, Doreen. IMO, that is one of the best posts in this thread. 
It is a perceptive post, but AFAICT it says there aren’t any global answers, that seniors, just like younger adults, have to figure out for themselves what to do with their days.
As a society, we can make sure our old folks have enough money for food and rent, and care for them when they’re too physically or mentally infirm to take care of themselves. But we can’t figure out for them what they should do with their time.
But there’s a world of stuff out there. There are books and movies, and more quality TV than at any time since TV was invented. They can get on the Web and fall in and never come out if they want. There are parks and museums and church groups and senior centers. There are a zillion charities and causes to volunteer for that could make use of an extra pair of hands. If they have grandkids, they can keep an eye on the grandkids for awhile and give their parents a breather.
The world is full of things to do. Most seniors, fortunately, realize this, and are finding lots of ways to enjoy their time. And while I feel sorry for someone who is so blind that they routinely have time hanging heavy on their hands and don’t see anything worthwhile to fill it with, there’s no way for the rest of us to remove their blindfold. They’ve got to do it themselves.
Several people in this thread have said they think there must be something else going on here - perhaps some cultural bias.
Do you think the cultural factor at work is that these people all come from the same culture and choose to spend time with each other?
Could it be this is the only way they can hang out with other people from the same background?
Or … could it be the mgmt of this place doesn’t like this particular culture and wouldn’t have a problem with other cultures hanging out? Is it just this particular culture?
I must admit that I can’t figure out the reason for this problem.
Nope, one of the senior centers is at a Korean community center and serves Korean meals- and at least some of this groups has lunch there and then goes to the McDonalds.
I suppose it’s possible, but you’d have to be a special kind of stupid to open a business in Flushing if you were biased against any Asian culture. This is a neighborhood where non-Asians often feel unwelcome
Have you been reading the thread? There are Korean-American senior centers nearby.
It’s taken years for the management to start getting heavy-handed about this, so that seems to fail as an explanation.
Maybe the Korean senior center is in a windowless basement, as some have suggested. But even so, ISTM that the codgers could and should clear out of MickeyD’s for two and a half hours each day during the lunch rush, and clear out for good around 4:30 before things start getting busy in the evening. It’s not like ‘windowless’ = prison. Yeah, I strongly prefer daylight myself. But gimme a break.
ETA: Hell, if time is hanging heavy on their hands, maybe they could figure out what they could do to make the Korean center a more pleasant place to hang out, and then spend some time doing it.
While this is somewhat true, I think there’s a good counter-argument that what a lot of people did with pre-retirement free time was raise families. Once the kids were grown and they were retired (and my grandparents were 68 and 73 when the last went to college), it’s a little late to start a hobby. We couldn’t get mine to do anything like a senior activity - then again, being able to do nothing but veg in front of the tube after raising 10 kids seemed like their idea of heaven. Fortunately my grandmother passed before Susan Lucci went off the air - then we’d have had trouble.
If watching TV was/is their idea of heaven , then there’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s not that the rest of us want them to sit in a room out of sight , or that there is nothing else for them to do - it’s what they want to do.
Right. So trying to steer them to a venue they’ve already convinced themselves they won’t enjoy is an exercise in futility.
One local BK is located within a block of a Middle School and High School. Every schoolday morning students congregate before school, many buying and/or bringing food in from elsewhere. Management dare not kick them out because the schools are the primary source of customers for the lunch rush.
While I don’t think these few elderly males at the McD’s in Flushing are the entire customer base perhaps they exert influence disproportionate to their numbers.
No. This is the one answer that simply isn’t possible. The neighborhood is approximately 99.9% asian, of which the predominant cultures are Korean and Chinese. The neighborhoods the are commuting from are also predominantly Korean.
For the record, my grandmother is 94 and lives in Queens. She goes to a seniors writing class (teacher is also a Prof at Barnard), seniors yoga, paints (recently contributing to a community public art project) and until recently volunteered at a preschool (she stopped cause the adorable little germ factories were giving her too many colds). Access-a-ride, a city transportation service for elderly/disabled, takes her door to door wherever she wants to go.
When I stop by she kicks me out after an hour, because she has things to do.
If seniors fit enough to use the bus want to be bored in this city its their choice, not because they’re old and wah wah wah.
I really think this is just more of a space problem than anything. It’s a business and they need to make money, being packed full of non-paying loiterers doesn’t keep them open for long.
Remember this is not a very big store at all.
Wow! I’ve never seen such a tiny McDonalds. It’s almost like a phone booth.
Nobody is trying to steer the McDonald’s group to a particular venue. But it’s simply not the case that they are old people who have nowhere else to go and nothing to do and it’s therefore society’s responsibility to provide them with someplace that suits them as some have implied. There are plenty of places to go and things to do - if these people don’t want to go to the senior center, that’s fine. That doesn’t mean they get to hang out in a restaurant all day after buying a cup of coffee. Presumably those grandparents are watching TV in their own home, not taking over the one at McDonald’s
I count four booths, seating four people each and four tables for two. Assuming that’s all of the seating in this restaurant, that’s only seating for 24 patrons.
And people talk about how McDonald’s needs to be “culturally sensitive.” Well, that’s a two-way street and these guys also need to be sensitive to the way things work in the US. Maybe in Seoul, they tolerate letting elderly people camp out in fast-food restaurants all day, but not here in America. (BTW, anyone have any clue what would happen in South Korea?)
But as you said, they’re customers. None of these people mentioned here are really customers – they’ll buy a small cup of coffee maybe when they come in, and spend the rest of the day, not just for a half an hour before school. Hell, some of them leave to eat lunch elsewhere and then COME BACK, like it’s the local park. The managment said they’re losing money due to these people, because other people don’t have the space to sit.
(And I’ve seen small McDonalds like that, at least ones that don’t have a lot of seating – they’re usually on the corner, just for people to grab a quick bite at meal time)
When I was a teenager, yeah my friends and I hung out at the mall. But we were also shopping. I don’t think I ever went there without buying something. We didn’t just go and sit in the food court all day.
Not everyone gets to 94 (although I’m gonna give it my best shot) or has the energy of your grandmother when they get there (ditto). But I think your implication is absolutely correct, that these people could be finding much more interesting ways to spend their days, other than hang around at MickeyD’s all day, if they only chose to.
After all, these are people who get around on their own, and who presumably go back to their own residences at night. They aren’t under anyone’s care, nor do they seem to need to be. They have the capability to go and do things. They just aren’t using it.
Which is fine, so far as it goes. If they want to spend their retirements sitting around on their butts drinking coffee all day, there’s no law against it. But they don’t have the right to do it on someone else’s private property where they’re in the way of other patrons of this business.
Like LC Strawhouse said, it feels weird taking the side of McDonalds on anything. But this one isn’t even close.
I think there is a business model to be had from studying this phenomina. Nearly all the donut shops in my neighborhood have groups of older folks that buy a cup of coffee and maybe a donut and then sit for a few hours. They might budget around $60.00 a month for their social life. Possibly if they had more exposure to things that might interest them they would find a niche. A lot of old guys couldn’t tell you what they would like to do because they don’t know, just by chance we occasionaly stumble across something that grabs us and we are off and running. So my solution is for communities with aging populations to make a bit more effort to expose their citisens to a wider variety of potentialy stimulating hobbies.
Put some “muscle” at the door and don’t let them in.
But once again, THERE ARE AREAS LIKE THAT IN THE CITY!!! They just want to hang out at this particular McDonalds, for some unknown reason.
Maybe a Korean competitor has ‘encouraged’ them to go there