When I worked in fast food in high school, we had a standing policy that all police officers got the 50% off employee discount. Generally, having a couple cruisers in the parking lot deterred trouble.
Offering a cop discounted food to hang out at your restaurant means, while taxpayers are flipping the bill, somewhere else isn't being covered as well. Hiring an off duty cop for part time security work, in contrast, doesn't reduce coverage.
Was it still known as Crackdonalds back then? I can't imagine meth was a big enough thing 20+ years ago that you'd also hear it called Methdonalds?
Some great people to work with, though (mostly from the Philippines). Also, it was never boring.
There's two different 7-11s near me, both on a main street, maybe half a mile apart. One has cops in it all the time, for the simple reason they freely allow cops to use their restroom. The other doesn't, and there are never cops there. This being a major city, the one without cops also has panhandlers outside on a nearly constant basis. The one with cops doesn't have any, ever.
Interestingly, the one without cops has taxis and limos in the lot late into the night. They never go in the store, they just hang out in the parking lot.
Oh, they're also dropping handcuffed drunk guys into the lake to drown, and doing a great job in Ferguson. If one actually pays attention, their activities are vastly different from those of police and sheriffs.
EDIT: How is the mob parallel applicable in this scenario? The stores voluntarily give them a discount hoping for more frequent police presence there (on breaks, etc). Nobody's threatening the stores to give them a discount, "or else". Did you think this was a bribe to ensure speedier "service" by the Police if the need arose? I don't get it.
Not to enter the argument about whether it's a protection racket (i.e. whether it shares many characteristics with the racket of the 1920s), but I think the problem is apparent. Absent incentives, the police would be present evenly according to their estimate of which places they should be at. If incentives did not increase a policeman's desire to be at a store, then providing the incentive would be pointless (and indeed the GGGP comment implies that the purpose of the incentive is to get a couple of cruisers in the parking lot in order to deter crime).
The only reasonable conclusion is that these incentives are provided in order to skew the locations at which police would be present. So the issue isn't speedier service. It looks like he's implying that they'd get more frequent visits as a consequence of providing preferential treatment.