London Mayor Wants to Make McDonald’s and KFC Safe Spaces from Knife Crime

A report published on Tuesday by the office of London Mayor Sadiq Khan makes for grim reading. It states that in 2016, 1,844 Londoners under the age of 25 were "injured as a result of non-domestic knife crimes"—the highest number since 2012. And as of June 18 this year, 24 young people have been fatally stabbed in the capital. In a bid to tackle London's growing knife crime problem, Khan has announced a new "Knife Crime Strategy," pledging to "protect young Londoners, their families, and communities from the devastating harm of knife crime and violence."

The strategy includes plans to offer metal detectors to every school in London and promises an extra £625,000 to knife crime prevention projects. In a more unusual move, it also expands the city's existing CitySafe Haven scheme to include fast food outlets.

The nationwide scheme is run by charity Citizens UK and sees businesses, shops, and public buildings sign up as "Havens" to offer refuge for young people feeling under threat of violence. There are currently around 600 CitySafe Havens in the capital and Khan's extension plans aim to cover the top 20 fast food outlets in London that "are linked to serious youth violence." McDonald's and KFC have both confirmed that they will be involved.

MUNCHIES reached out to the Mayor's office to ask why fast food outlets have been singled out as new CitySafe Haven locations. A representative told us: "The Metropolitan Police Service is working to identify premises across the capital that are most at risk of youth violence—and we are working to develop a response to incidents in these, which include fast food outlets."

Tuesday's report goes into a little more detail. It acknowledges that violence is not linked to the restaurants themselves, but rather that they are locations that attract "a young clientele."

What the new knife crime strategy is less clear on, however, is how restaurant staff will be equipped to deal with young people who may need to use their establishment as a refuge. Khan promises to "work with major fast food outlets and partners to provide additional training for staff, equipment, and other support to make these locations safe" but doesn't elaborate on how exactly this would work.

When we asked the Mayor's office representative, they told MUNCHIES that Citizens UK would be running the training programme. We reached out to the charity for further information but did not hear back at the time of publishing.

And what about the restaurants themselves? In the past, McDonald's and KFC have both taken measures to reduce anti-social behaviour on their premises, such as playing classical music at night and even banning under-18s. We asked KFC for their opinion on the new CitySafe Haven scheme (McDonald's had not responded to our request for comment at the time of publishing).

A spokesperson told us: "We're really lucky to be loved by many young people, so getting involved in this project being led by the Mayor of London felt to us to be the right thing to do. Many of our 890 restaurants across the UK and Ireland are in towns and city centres, which means that we have a real opportunity to play an active role helping our local communities. We're already supporting many of those communities through our charity initiative Add Hope and our Food Donation scheme, so becoming involved in City Safe Havens is a great way for us to play an even bigger role. We're looking forward to working closely with the Mayor to put processes in place to support this."

After the closure of more than 30 youth centres and cuts of nearly £400 million to youth service spending between 2010 and 2016, it seems that the job of protecting vulnerable young people is now falling to fast food chains.