Japan Teaches McDonalds USA How To Surrender

You'd think that a multi-national organisation which has experienced the hysteria of health-obsessed righteous would learn from similar assaults on other legal products, wouldn't you?

You'd be wrong.

Most new McDonalds' outlets to ban smoking

The nation's most popular hamburger joint will ban smoking at most of its new outlets despite an anticipated loss of sales, sources said.

McDonald's Co. (Japan), the nation's largest restaurant chain, plans to replace about 30 percent of its approximately 3,500 stores nationwide over the next several years.

Sales usually decline slightly when smoking is banned. Still, Eikoh Harada, president of McDonald's (Japan), said that he expects customer numbers will eventually increase.

Remember that Japan is a nation which hasn't yet imposed draconian smoking bans. It's also a nation which has traditionally viewed meek surrender as shameful.

Yet surrender this is. And their jumping before being pushed, as this can accurately be described, will be gleefully received by the anti-fast food lobby in the US.

Because, you see, Eikoh Harada has lobbed a nasty little verbal grenade.

He also said the company has a responsibility to society as the nation's largest restaurant chain.

Oh dear.

McDonalds across the Atlantic are under attack from those who say they have the same moral responsibility to ban happy meals. Yank CEO, Jim Skinner, was bloody angry at the very suggestion.

At McDonald's, we listen to what our customers tell us. For the past 30 years they have told us -- again, overwhelmingly -- that they approve of our Happy Meal program. Three decades provide a lot of listening time.

Yeah, but don't you have a "responsibility to society as the nation's largest restaurant chain" to ignore what your customers tell you and implement a ban anyway? Your Jap colleagues appear to believe so, Jim.

It seems that, despite being subject to their own continuous barrage from risk-terrified health freaks, even McDonalds don't understand how the righteous work. They thrive on the apologies and self-flagellation of those they seek to subjugate. The giving of an inch is bad enough, but the whole nine yards is worse.

Appeasement is never a good idea, and Harada's capitulation here may well have hastened the day - and it will come if current trends continue - when he will be apologising for his company ever having served a Happy Meal or pre-mix Pepsi in Japan.