Burger King’s most famous slogan is “Have It Your Way,” though its current slogan is “You Rule.” But given the fast food chain’s history of attracting thrifty hotheads, it might consider a new slogan: “Sorry We Can’t Take Your Coupon, So Please Don’t Assault Us!”
It took nearly four months, but police in upstate New York have tracked down the man they say turned an argument over a coupon into an assault and heist over the summer.
29-year-old Byron Bournes of Hartford, Connecticut was arrested last week. Police in the Town of Lloyd, New York, just over the Connecticut border, say Bournes went through the drive-thru of a local Burger King back on July 21, and became upset when he was told his coupon for an approximately $8 meal was not valid.
So, instead of paying full price, or canceling his order, he allegedly did the next best thing – pulled over, entered the restaurant, confronted an employee and pushed the individual to the floor, broke open the cash register, grabbed approximately $100 and the employee’s cell phone, and fled.
Surveillance video captured the entire incident, including the suspect’s car leaving the scene. So it was only a matter of identifying him, tracking him down and getting him back to Lloyd to face charges.
And he’s far from the only Burger King customer whose frustration with a coupon turned criminal. In the dozen-year history of Coupons in the News, no store has seen as many bizarre coupon confrontations as the Home of the Whopper. Last summer, a woman in Virginia, similarly upset about her coupon being denied in a Burger King drive-thru, entered the restaurant and threw her food and her fists at employees. A few months earlier, a Connecticut man upset about a coupon was charged with threatening to shoot up his local Burger King and kill everyone inside. A few years earlier, an Iowa man allegedly attacked a Burger King employee who refused his coupon, and a year prior to that, a Florida man whose coupons were refused was charged with grabbing a Burger King cashier by the wrist and trying to “pull her over the counter.”
Oh, but there’s more. There was the South Carolina man whose coupon was refused and responded by allegedly coming back to the Burger King’s drive-thru with a gun. That incident followed an earlier threat from a Connecticut man who implied he wanted to shoot up his local Burger King when he wasn’t allowed to use a breakfast coupon at lunchtime.
And Wisconsin may take the prize as being the location of one of the most memorable Burger King coupon confrontations. Back in 2016, a mother-daughter duo were arrested, after the mother felt she was “disrespected” by a cashier who refused her coupon, and allegedly sicced her daughter on the employee in revenge.
In most cases, the suspects took off without their food or their coupon. Bournes is the only one of the bunch who appears to have actually profited from the exchange, by allegedly making off with cash and a cell phone, at least temporarily.
He now faces a host of charges, including robbery, assault, larceny and criminal mischief. And he’s earned a permanent place in the Burger King Coupon Confrontation Hall of Fame – not exactly the “You Rule” recognition he probably had in mind.
Image source: Burger King / Ulster County Sheriff’s Office
