We’re not lovin’ it: Trevor Brown, Dane, Imogen and Peter Clarke, Sylvia Jackson, and Florin and Alexandra Chira are furious over a Casey Council decision to increase trading hours at a new McDonald’s restaurant in Berwick.
By Callan Date
A GROUP of Berwick residents are spitting chips over an application for McDonald’s to extend the trading hours of its new restaurant.
The residents say their quiet street has turned into a drag strip full of anti-social hoons who leave their fast-food rubbish scattered across the neighbourhood.
And the unruly behaviour is only expected to get worse after City of Casey Council voted 6-3 in favour of the Homestead Road restaurant’s application to increase trading hours from 11pm to 1am each night.
Adding salt to the wounds of Florin Chira and several of his neighbours is the fact councillors overturned a recommendation by Casey officers to refuse the extension.
Mr Chira said the later closing time would only attract more undesirable people to the area and entice drunken patrons from a nearby pub over to the restaurant for a late-night meal.
“Almost every weekend we get woken up from people hanging around at the McDonald’s car park,” he said.
“It is only going to get worse if they are allowed to open later.”
McDonald’s also successfully applied to increase delivery times from 6pm to 7pm.
Mr Chira said he was particularly concerned with the reckless driving behaviour of motorists regularly using the McDonald’s drive-through service.
“When the hoons are leaving McDonald’s they are screeching their tyres. We see it everyday,” he said.
“Almost on a daily basis we also have to pick up litter from our street and front yard.”
And Mr Chira is not alone when it comes to concerns over the fast food establishment.
Angela Reid, whose house backs on to the restaurant car park, also wants McDonald’s patrons to clean up their act.
“We have a young family here and we are really worried about what is happening,” Ms Reid said.
She said McDonald’s customers had been using her husband’s ute as a rubbish bin and were regularly trampling through their front yard.
“The crazy thing is we were not even notified by council about the (McDonald’s) application to go to 1am,” Ms Reid said.
“We live next-door to the restaurant and we didn’t even know anything about it until a neighbour let us know.”
Casey Council heard the residents’ formal complaints, but still voted against their wishes.
A report presented to councillors said if the application was granted it would set an “undesirable precedent for the rest of the site”, which includes a Red Rooster store and another restaurant.
Springfield Ward councillor Lorraine Wreford, who represents the people objecting to the proposal, said locals needed late-night food options.
“It’s about the greater good of the community. Why should they have to shut at 11pm?” she said.
Casey mayor Colin Butler, who voted against extending the trading hours, said he couldn’t see the benefit of having a fast food outlet open for an extra two hours every night.
McDonald’s public affairs manager Sarah Gibbons said the restaurant would work with the community and the police if issues arose.
Ms Gibbons said 16 internal and external security cameras were installed and car park lighting remained on during all times of operation.
“We plan to maintain these levels of security and at the same time we regularly evaluate each restaurant’s needs,” she said.
“In terms of litter, managers and crew undertake hourly litter patrols in the car park and nearby vicinity.”
Ms Gibbons said the restaurant’s trading hours were consistent with other McDonald’s outlets in and around Melbourne. Casey manager of planning Bob Baggio said residents had until Tuesday to lodge an objection.
“Council records indicate that all adjoining residents and those properties on Homestead Road opposite the site were directly notified of the application as per council’s usual practice,” Mr Baggio said.
Mr Chira said residents would soon hold a meeting to decide their next course of action.
“We feel we have been cheated. We have not been represented at all by our councillors,” Mr Chira said.
