Would you fight the opening of a fast food chain coming to your neighborhood?
One is being planned for Englishtown, and some people don’t like the idea, while other applaud it?

I live maybe a half mile down the road from a proposed McDonald’s in Englishtown.

Just like any other part of the state that’s welcoming more and more businesses like fast food places, this one has its detractors and supporters.

For me, it’s no big deal. The proposed restaurant is going up in what’s already become a retail strip, directly across from a Quik Check.

Traffic on any given day usually is unbearable no matter what time it is.

The upsides to this: McDonald’s will probably be hiring from the community, as well as benefiting the town’s tax coffers.

Can’t argue with that too much.

The dollar menu. Ronald McDonald. The Big Mac. Get ready, Englishtown. This Revolutionary War municipality will become home to a 20th-century icon.

At its meeting on Jan. 22, the borough’s Unified Planning/Zoning Board approved an application for the construction of a Mc- Donald’s fast food restaurant on property at the intersection of Gordons Corner Road and Wilson Avenue, Englishtown.

The restaurant is a permitted use in the zone. Current plans call for access points on Wilson Avenue and on Gordons Corner Road. Monmouth County engineers are expected to review the access plans.

The vote to approve the McDonald’s was not unanimous; however, the board secretary declined to inform the News Transcript how each board member voted on a motion to approve the application.

While some people may be celebrating the approval of a McDonald’s in Englishtown and the promise of a fast-food emporium, Keith Mandato is not one of them.

Mandato lives on Gordons Corner Road in Englishtown, almost directly across from the retail center where McDonald’s will eventually make its home.

“They couldn’t pick a business with a higher volume of traffic?” Mandato asked with a hint of sarcasm in his voice on the morning of Jan. 23.

“I figured they would take into consideration the future of the town. What used to be a (traffic) problem on weekends from the (Englishtown Auction Sales) and (Raceway Park in Old Bridge) has become a daily ordeal. I have had two accidents in front of my property,” he said.

Mandato said he is concerned about the additional in and out movements McDonald’s will generate at the retail plaza.

The retail plaza where the McDonald’s is expected to locate also includes a Walgreens pharmacy and a private preschool.

Here’s the deal:

As far as this location is concerned…the bigger chains like Walgreen's and Quik Check are already there. True, it’s difficult to get around there as it is, but you have to figure that something else, if not the McDonalds, will be occupying the space that now is a small undeveloped parcel, as previously stated, in back of a strip mall.

It's like the scene in "Dances With Wolves" when the older Native American chief holds up the helmet of a Spanish warrior and says something to the effect of knowing where there's one, more will follow.

In this case, bigger businesses.

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