McDonald's: City Fails to See the Light

THE MOSCOW TIMESThe world's most famous hamburger restaurant is having trouble figuring out whether the Moscow city government is calling for energy conservation or saying, "Let there be light."The city authorities have fined two McDonald's restaurants and a number of stores on Tverskaya Ulitsa for violating a recent order by Mayor Yury Luzhkov for cafes and retail outlets to keep their neon signs and shop windows lit at night as part of a beautification program.Viktor Shumailov of the city's Administrative Technical Inspectorate, which imposed the penalties, said Friday a routine inspection of Tverskaya Ulitsa on May 31 had brought fines for eight establishments that left their signs or windows unlit."Tverskaya is the city's main street, the face of the capital," Shumailov said. "Its appearance must be worthy of this status."McDonald's was fined 108,000 rubles ($55) for failing to switch on its neon sign with the famous golden arches by 10:30 P.M., said Sergei Dochkin, a spokesman for the restaurant."It's some kind of misunderstanding," he said. "We fought for five years with the city energy authorities because they wouldn't allow us to keep the sign on at night, and now we're being forced to do it."Dochkin said the restaurant did not switch on the sign because the management had been following old regulations requiring them to save energy. He said McDonald's had not been informed of the mayor's new order."Our authorities go from one extreme to another," he complained. "If a company is paying for a lighted sign, it should feel free to use it or not use it."For McDonald's there is another irony: Its neon golden arches signs have brought numerous complaints from communities in the United States which regard the lights as garish and an eyesore.The mayor's order, signed on April 13, says shop windows and neon signs should light up at the same time as street lamps are turned on -- 10:30 P.M. at this time of year -- and remain lit until 2 A.M.Shumailov said the order was not only meant to make city streets prettier but to make neighborhoods safer."People feel safer when a street is well-lit," he said.Another victim of the new order, Stroimarket food store, owned by a German-dominated group of shareholders, was fined more than 200,000 rubles, according to a store manager who only gave her first name, Julia."It's still light as day at half past 10," she said. "The fine is a rip-off, nothing else."She said the store had not been told in advance about the mayor's order. Officials who imposed the fine said that if Stroimarket did not pay up within 10 days, it would have to pay a penalty amounting to 10 times the size of the fine."Now we instruct our security staff to turn on the lights exactly at 10:30," Julia said.