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Harvard Avenue McDonald's gets OK to open at 5 a.m.
By adamg on Fri, 06/28/2013 - 1:59pm
The Boston Licensing Board says the presence of methadone patients who aren't breaking any laws isn't reason to keep the McDonald's at Harvard and Comm. avenues from opening at 5 a.m.
Its approval means the burger/Egg McMuffin emporium can now open 21 hours a day. It previously had opened at 7 a.m., which franchisee Bob King said meant he could not serve the crowds clamoring for McDonald's take on breakfast earlier in the morning.
At the other end of the neighborhood, on Western Avenue, the board said the McDonald's there - owned by the same franchisee as Harvard Avenue - can stay open between 6 a.m. and 1 a.m. It had sought permission to open at 5 a.m. and shut at 3 a.m.; city officials, however, expressed concern about the impact of such long hours on the new Charlesview apartment complex just now opening next door.
In other Allston culinary news, the board also approved Michael Chapman's plans to turn a derelict, rodent-spewing building into a swanky restaurant on Glenville Avenue.
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Comments
So why can't they just be
So why can't they just be open 24 hours? I mean, Jesus Christ, would it be so fucking horrible for the moral fabric and community values of the cesspit that is Harvard and Comm for McDonalds to be open 24 hours? The junkies are gonna be there anyway.
this is not what we want
problem addresses attract problem people, and this will just make it worse. It is bad enough the city does little to clean up Allston, never holds slumlords accountable, never inspects buildings in Allston, and now this?
Have you ever been awake at 5 AM and been at Harvard and Comm? it is a ghost town. Just cabbies and the homeless. There is no need for this expansion
Has it ever occurred to you
The reason that it is a "ghost town" is because nothing is open?
In other words, your resistance to having anything open at this hour contributes to the problems at this hour.
I will say this again until it gets through: a deserted city street is a mugger's paradise. Closing down shops causes streets to be deserted.
if it were anything else
I have no problem with a 24 hour diner, or the Tedeschi's being open 24/7, hell keep bagel rising open the entire time, or some other place..
but that dingy gross mcdonald's has become a mecca for transients, and addicts and if you have been watching the crime stats for D14 (Hint: they are not good), you probably do not want that mcdonald's open longer.
Crime stats at that intersection
At the hearing, Joshua Krefetz, the lawyer for the franchisee, said he retrieved something like two years' worth of BPD crime reports for the intersection of Harvard and Comm. and said there were few incidents before 8 a.m., and most of those were of the traffic-accident variety, not hard crime.
Also, the place is scheduled for renovations, he and franchisee Bob King said.
Yeah, that area is most
Yeah, that area is most certainly a hotbed of crime. Come on, man, it's just grimy homeless people and junkies. All major cities have them. How is allowing businesses to run 24/7 going to make things any worse?
I too would rather a 24-hour diner
I don't frequent McDonald's and I don't intend to. But I also don't have any reason to get in the way of their request.
They just happen to have the resources to pursue this kind of hours change. I hope that this leads to further opportunities for businesses such as Bagel Rising, @Union, or maybe even something new.
I'm aware of the dinginess at that corner and I keep track of D-14 stats. What I don't see is how your desire for shorter hours is helping. The McDonald's is not a crime-producing factory (it's a grease-producing factory). Operating it for more hours will not "produce more crime." That's a false link. If anything, your desire for shorter hours is hurting Allston by enabling crime that thrives in deserted locales.
What I would like to see is more reason for law-abiding folks to be there at those hours. If a muffin and coffee is what does it, great. I also hope for more businesses to be open then too. That means more jobs, and more responsible eyes on the street.
and
i never said i want to cut back their hours..
I am let down by that intersection (Ditmar Square). we lose Marty's, get a Kelly's for a hot minute and now that is gone. The Unos (which i could care less about) stood empty and will now be a bank, which is across the street from a bank.
The charm of Allston is small unique places and not chains.Fast food places in general never add to a neighborhood, and i simply do not believe that place adds anything beneficial.
Bring back the Deli King!
There, I said it.
yes but I really miss
Graecian Yearning...#5 combo french toast & pancakes, home fries and gyros. Especially in the summer as the eufe and I would make the occasional Sunday excursion back to Allston.
Deli King!
Holy Crap, Adam, now that's "Old School."
I miss Diskovery, Father's (with all of the bikers), and Ken's Pub, with all of the Quaalude freaks floating down the spiral stairs...
Loved Diskovery. I'll never
Loved Diskovery. I'll never forget the owner coming out the door and shouting down the street at me and my girlfriend because she had just found the LP we had been looking for.
Agreed
I agree with you. One of the reasons I continue to live in Allston is that we have a wonderful, diverse selection of small places to eat. Kelly's made a bad business decision and unfortunately we have to deal with a dead corner as a result. At some point another business will come along to take over that lease. It almost happened last summer. But with so many other options, we'll manage for the time being.
I disagree that mass-market chains are entirely bad. They have their place and can co-exist with local shops. The problem comes when they overwhelm everything else.
But that happens because of supply restrictions in a rising market. And those supply restrictions come about because of misguided or malicious zoning and planning initiatives, or due to fierce community resistance to development. Ultimately that obstinance is counterproductive, because it drives out the unique character that they were attempting to protect in the first place.
Ditmar Square?
Is this something the younin's are calling it now?
Disagree
Maybe nobody is going to be waiting outside their door right at 5AM but 5AM to 7AM they will do a lot of business as people use the Harvard Ave T stop on their way to work.
The solution to problematic people isn't to have closed businesses so nobody can use said business at all. As I mentioned in another thread those same people congregate at Comm and Warren, and if not in McDonald's would just be right outside it.
If you want to clean up the area of the mentally ill, homeless, and drug addicts there are a few things that need to be done:
1.
Stop methadone treatments. Make those users go to an inpatient facility where they quit cold turkey while monitored by medical and psychological staff.
2.
Return state inpatient psychological facilities to their pre-1960's level, albeit with better care than those facilities used then.
3.
Endeavor to educate students from historically trashy areas in more than just the state required school subjects, but also impress upon them the importance to be and behave cultured and educated.
Stop entertainment's faux celebration of such trashiness with the countless reality shows featuring trashy people or families.
Those children will grow up with better opportunities in life and have less of a chance of becoming drug addicts or layabouts.
Thanks for the free medical advice, Dr. Kat
I am not a huge fan of long term methadone use but it has its place in the world of addiction treatment in the US. We can't just stop it and send everyone to an inpatient facility for 30,60,90 days instead of methadone clinics.
What we need is tighter control over methadone and added psychiatric and psychological care for people on it, not the complete prohibition of it.
For your second point - that will never happen.
Third point? Could you elaborate on what you mean by
so I know which ad hominem response to make?
I live right off Glenville,
I live right off Glenville, so I don't need you to tell me what "we" want. What "I" want is for things to be open when I am awake, which, being at the tender age of 26, is pretty late, oftentimes.
Why is the failure of the city to clean up the neighborhood a justification to punish residents and businesses?
you missed my point
As i said, i do not mind things being open late or 24 hours, but that McDonalds is not my first choice. Bagel rising open at 5 am? awesome! Some could do a 24 hour diner in that vacant area left by Kelly's.. awesome.
But that grungy mcdonalds, no thanks
But why do you get to choose
But why do you get to choose what businesses do and do not stay open 24 hours? And why is a McDonalds any worse than anything else?
I think you missed the larger
I think you missed the larger point, which is that the McDonald's WANTS to be open at 5. Do you think the Bagel Rising hippies want to get up that early?
So you're saying
the "rising" is referencing the bagels, not an early breakfast?
:^|
...people who eat bagels are
...people who eat bagels are now being labeled hippies? Damn, I'm so confused! People who support local independent business don't wake up early in the morning? Strange notion and utterly false. Sucks for Allston that quirky shops are being kicked out for corporate chains demanding special treatment not given to independent businesses. Keep supporting places like McD's and that's what you'll get: boring corporate sameness which used to be what Allston fought against. Ho-hum bland. Why do people move to Allston and then want it to be like every other boring suburbanite town? Whoopdeedoo you have a 24-hour McDonald's. If that's your aim in life, to live near a 24-hour McD's then I'm sorry for you.
They ment the staff. I have a
They ment the staff.
I have a favorite memory of Going in there on the 20th of April and they were playing 40oz to Freedom. I also know that there have been issues with business partnerships because of the unreliability of the staff.
Bagel Rising makes amazing bagels and the staff is mixture of Hippies/Stoners and Hipsters.
I think anyone who has ever eaten there can agree with that.
If Bagel Rising requested to be open at 5am I would support them, Likely more vocally. Its not a McD OR other places.
So you, supreme leader, get
So you, supreme leader, get to decide who gets to open, when?
If you want bagels or a diner at 5am, open a bagel shop. However, the market seems to have spoken in that it wants mcdonalds at that hour. If there wasnt demand, the owner wouldnt be looking to operate at those hours.
Heres a shocker, and sit down for it: Not everyone shares your tastes.
MBTA Logic
We need those 2 hours to perform routine Fryolator maintenance and to rotate the Filets-o-Fish.
Can we
Just nuke that part of Allston?
Nuke it from Orbit...
...it's the only way to be certain...