Dipping Sauce Rage Lands Woman In Jail

JANUARY 6--Incensed that she would have to pay extra for dipping sauce, a McDonald’s customer threatened to “rob” the restaurant and warned that she would get the condiments “by whatever means necessary,” according to Florida police.

As detailed in an arrest affidavit, Maguire McLaughlin, 19, arrived at a McDonald’s in Vero Beach around 3:45 AM on January 1. McLaughlin, seen above, ordered a “large amount of food,” which she paid for at the drive-thru window.

At that point, McLaughlin, who lives about five miles from the restaurant, asked for one dipping sauce in each flavor McDonald’s offers. An employee responded by saying that each packet would cost McLaughlin 25 cents, “at which point a verbal altercation ensued,” cops say.

McLaughlin allegedly “began yelling profanities at several employees stating she would ‘rob’ the establishment if she didn’t get her dipping sauce.” McLaughlin, a McDonald’s worker told police, added that she would procure the dipping sauce “by whatever means necessary.” The employee, however, “could not specify” what McLaughlin meant by her comment.

When questioning McLaughlin, police detected alcohol on her breath and noted that the teenager’s “eyes were glossy and speech was slurred.” McLaughlin, the affidavit reports, “would momentarily become cooperative” with cops, and then would begin yelling profanities at them.

Several McDonald’s workers “were distraught by McLaughlin’s actions,” and one female worker said she “was in fear for her own well being through the course of the disturbance.”

McLaughlin was arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Free on $1000 bond, she is scheduled for a January 28 arraignment on the misdemeanor counts. (2 pages)