Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser [179]
85 “Who would oppose putting out guidelines”: Quoted in Vartabedian, “Big Business.”
“potentially damaging” robbery statistics: Quoted in Jack Hayes, “Industry Execs Nix OSHA Guidelines at ‘Security Summit,’” Nation’s Restaurant News, May 19, 1997.
“No other American industry”: Interview with Joseph A. Kinney.
86 Hundreds of fast food restaurants are robbed: This is my own estimate. The Los Angeles Police Department is one law enforcement agency that does track restaurant robberies, of which the vast majority are fast food robberies. The population of Los Angeles is about one-eightieth the total U.S. population. In 1998, 520 L.A. restaurants were robbed. Even if you assume, conservatively, that L.A. restaurants are four times more likely to be robbed than restaurants elsewhere in the country, that still leaves an estimated 10,000 U.S. restaurant robberies every year. The actual number is most likely higher. The FBI does compile statistics on convenience store robberies, and during the mid-1990s about 28,000 of them were robbed every year (more than 500 a week). According to the LAPD’s 1998 robbery statistics, restaurants were robbed nearly twice as often as minimarts. See “Restaurant Robberies in L.A. from 01/01/98 to 12/31/98” and “Mini-Mart Robberies in L.A. from 01/01/98 to 12/31/98,” Los Angeles Police Department; and Greg Warchoi, “Workplace Violence, 1992–96,” Bureau of Labor Statistics Special Report, July 1998.
88 “Cynics need to be in some other industry”: The speeches and panel discussions at the Thirty-eighth Annual Multi-Unit Foodserver Operator Conference were tape-recorded by the Sound of Knowledge, Inc., San Diego, California.
4. Success
Mahmood A. Khan’s Restaurant Franchising (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1992) provides a straightforward examination of the subject, much like a textbook. Stan Luxenberg’s Roadside Empires is less thorough but much more interesting, examining the franchise boom in the context of American postwar culture. Big Mac, by Max Boas and Steven Chain, John Love’s Behind the Arches, and Ray Kroc’s Grinding It Out also contain good material on the early days of franchising in the fast food industry. A number of articles published in academic journals helped me understand some of franchising’s finer details: Francine Lafontaine, “Pricing Decisions in Franchised Chains: A Look at the Restaurant and Fast-Food Industry,” Working Paper 5247, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 1995; Scott A. Shane, “Hybrid Organizational Arrangements and their Implications for Firm Growth and Survival: A Study of New Franchisors,” Academy of Management Journal, February 1996; H. G. Parsa, “Franchisee-Franchisor Relationships in Quick-Service-Restaurant Systems,” Cornell Hotel & Restaurant Administration Quarterly, June 1996; Scott A. Shane and Chester Spell, “Factors for New Franchise Success,” Sloan Management Review, March 22, 1998; Robert W. Emerson, “Franchise Terminations: Legal Rights and Practical Effects When Franchisees Claim the Franchisor Discriminates,” American Business Law Journal, June 22, 1998. The Franchise Opportunities Guide, published annually by the International Franchise Association, gives a rosy view of “the success story of the 1990s.” The Franchise Fraud: How to Protect Yourself Before and After You Invest (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994), by Robert L. Purvin, Jr., regards the promises of franchisors with more suspicion. Mr. Purvin — an attorney who serves as chairman of the board of trustees of the American Association of Franchisees and Dealers — helped to ensure the accuracy of my legal analysis. Susan Kezios, president of the American Franchisee Association, spoke with me at length about the legislative reforms being sought by her organization. Richard Adams, the president of Consortium Members, Inc., an alliance of disgruntled McDonald’s franchisees, described some of the franchising practices of the world’s largest fast food chain. Rieva Lesonsky,