Food

Woman Arrested After Threatening to Get McDonald's Sauce 'by Whatever Means Necessary'

Girl, it would've been so much cheaper to just pay for the dang sauce.
McDonald's bbq ranch dipping sauce
Photo: Getty Images

If Maguire McLaughlin's New Year's resolution was not to threaten McDonald's employees, it sure didn't last very long. The 19-year-old Florida woman was arrested just before 4 a.m. on New Year's Day at a McDonald's in Vero Beach, after she allegedly lost her shit over 25-cent containers of dipping sauce.

According to an arrest affidavit from the Indian River County Sheriff's Department, McLaughlin ordered a "large amount of food" at the restaurant's drive-thru. After paying for her meal—and sadly, the cops didn't itemize the components of her order—she asked for "one flavor of every dipping sauce they have." When a McDonald's worker told her that those containers would cost an extra quarter each, she started yelling and swearing at the employee, and threatened to rob the restaurant if she didn't get her sauce.

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Fearing for her own safety, as well as for the safety of her workers, McDonald's manager Beverly Keever called the cops. When Deputy Christian Castano arrived at the McDonald's, McLaughlin started cursing at him, too. "As McLaughlin spoke, I could smell the odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting from her mouth," Castano wrote in his report. "Her eyes were glassy and her speech was slurred. McLaughlin would momentarily become cooperative and suddenly begin yelling profanities."

Castano wrote that McLaughlin told him that she "will be getting the sauce by whatever means necessary," but she couldn't explain what, exactly, she meant by that. (Apparently spending an extra couple of bucks was out of the question.)

McLaughlin was ultimately arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. When Castano tried to guide her toward his police car, the woman locked her legs and refused to walk—and when he got her close enough to put her in the back seat, she "placed her legs on the door jamb and refused to get inside." As a result, she was taken to the ground and put in mechanical leg restraints before being bundled into the car. (Sounds like 2020 is off to a great start for Maguire.)

Last January, an 18-year-old Arizona man didn't get the hot sauce he'd asked for with his fries, so he walked into that McDonald's and poured his soda on one of the employees, then left. The dripping wet victim followed Antonio Alonso Ballesteros out of the restaurant, but the beyond-irate customer allegedly grabbed a shotgun from the rack on his SUV and aimed it at the worker.

According to ABC15 Arizona, when Phoenix police officers located Ballesteros, he said that the soda-drenched McDonald's employee was about to pour a cup of coffee on his vehicle, which is why he pointed his gun at her. He also reportedly told officers that, yeah, he was mad that he hadn't gotten his hot sauce. He was charged with aggravated assault.

Back in Florida, The Smoking Gun reports that McLaughlin was released on $1,000 bond and has been scheduled for arraignment at the end of January. Girl, it would've been so much cheaper to just pay for the fucking sauce.