And This One Right Across the Road From An Elementary School
A Brief Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter/publisher Doug Draper
Posted November 21st 2024 on Niagara At Large
Seems it’s not good enough for the City of Thorold to already have two McDonald’s fast food outlets located just a few minutes’ drive away from its downtown area.
The Niagara, Ontario municipality of Thorold gets its first McDonald’s, opened this November, 2024. photo by Doug Draper
Of course, the McDonald’s outlets I am referring to are all located in neighboring St. Catharines – one on St. David’s Road across from the Niagara Region headquarters, and the other below the Niagara Escarpment on Glendale Avenue across from the Penn Centre shopping mall – and Thorold, for the 40 some odd years I have been living here, seems to have this thing about not feeling whole as a municipality unless it has its own Post Office, Beer Store, LCBO (which, in the case of that one, it lost some time ago) and an assortment of brand name chain outlets like Tim Horton’s and McDonald’s.
So against the better wishes of members of Heritage Thorold, the city’s volunteer heritage committee which has done such a stellar career over the years of working with independent businesses and supportive members of council in revitalizing the downtown, a majority on the city’s council voted last year to rezone land on a corner of Sullivan and Pine Streets from residential to commercial to make way for McDonald’s.
And earlier this November, to the delight of at least some, the McDonald’s – drive-thru and all – officially opened right off same street intersection as one of the area’s oldest, if not the oldest elementary schools.
A new McDonald’s opens in Niagara, sharing an intersection with a crossing guard safeguarding young children and Prince of Wales S Public School right across the road. photo by Doug Draper
Pardon me for not sharing in the delight of this fast-food outlet’s opening, but how good is it to have the Golden Arches sharing the same intersection with a crossing guard who is kept busy helping young children walk to and from the school.
Perhaps McDonald’s could hire its clown Ronald to help the crossing guard with the extra traffic the fast-food outlet may attract. While there, the clown might want to do double duty, leading the children and their parents into the outlet for some of that oh-so-nutritious food.
“You deserve a break today,” so the old McDonald’s slogan goes.
The question I have is when are some of the rest of us going to get a break from urban development like this?
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Doug Draper, Niagara At Large
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