No one’s above the law, not even McDonald’s famous mascot it would seem…
In a rather bizarre move, police in Guangzhou, China, forcibly dismantled and arrested a Ronald McDonald statue which was standing on the pavement outside of a McDonald’s restaurant on Sunday.
Turns out though the police actually had a pretty good reason for sending Ronald to ‘the clink’.
You see it’s actually illegal to place outdoor advertising on the streets in Guangzhou, and a government official claims that McDonald’s have ignored repeated warnings to remove the creepy clown, Mashable reports.
An official explained:
We’ve asked them to remove the Ronald McDonald statue from the sidewalk several times.
But they have refused to cooperate. If the McDonald’s staff admit their violation and accept the punishment, they can have their statue back…
Despite the police technically being in the right, their arrest of the statue was still pretty funny, with confused bystanders watching in amazement as three code enforcement officers ripped poor Ronald off his stand, leaving only his shoes behind.
Pictures of the weird arrest have since gone viral on the Chinese social media site Weibo.
And while most are surprised by the clown’s run-in with the law, some Weibo users have speculated that this may be the act of a rival restaurant, asking: “Are they in cahoots with KFC?”
No word on what Ronald’s bail’s been set at, but he’s known to hang out with shady characters like the Hamburglar so he may have prior form…
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.