Wait, police *want* Mickey D's to close?

In the U.S., people love to make jokes implying that cops eat a lot of donuts. That's because you can often find police at a donut shop. The truth is, though, they frequent all kinds of fast food restaurants and diners on their dinner break or just for a cup of coffee and a snack to keep them going throughout their shift, and we notice them because they are in uniform (lots of other people are in those donut shops, too, but they're mostly not in uniform, so no stereotype is born). However, some police (in the U.S.) tend to hang out at certain restaurants a lot because many of these places give on-duty officers discounted food or free coffee -- the idea is that it keeps trouble down at the Burger King if the Po Po are around, so offer incentives to keep the cops on your doorstep.

Which is why it made me smile to read that police in Reading actually *don't* want a McDonald's to stay open until 5 a.m. There's a good reason for their feelings -- namely, that the oft-mentioned "anti-social behavior" by some in the UK can be even more of a pain in the arse to control if hoodlums actually have reasons to be out and places to go all night. But it's still a funny contrast -- cops that don't want a place to get a coffee and some pie on the graveyard shift?!