Fast-Food Beachhead : Island Town Leery of a Big Mac Attack

McDonald’s is coming to Bainbridge Island, and some residents of this Puget Sound oasis fear that it could be the beginning of the end of a quiet life style that revolves around families and ferry schedules to Seattle.

The city of Winslow is taking steps to make sure that the fast-food restaurant will not shake up the community when it arrives as early as this spring.

What promises to be Washington state’s first law banning plastic-foam containers, such as the kind Big Macs and other McDonald’s hamburgers come in, is one way officials hope to limit the environmental impact.

But many officials say McDonald’s is just a symbolic target of much deeper concern.

“I think the real reason (for concern) is that they’re not afraid of deep-fried food and the looks of the thing so much as they feel it represents an incursion into the isolation that Bainbridge Island has,” said Bob Chapel, a Winslow city councilman.

‘Fear of Change’

“I think it’s fear of change,” agreed Terry Dolan, another councilman. “In my opinion, the McDonald’s itself is not a significant change. I think the McDonald’s is a symbol of change that has already taken place and they’re taking it out on McDonald’s.”

Bainbridge Island, home to 13,000 people, including many white-collar professionals who commute by ferry to Seattle, sits between two of Washington’s fastest-growing areas.

Seattle, to the east, bristles with new skyscrapers. The Kitsap Peninsula lies to the west, and Kitsap County has been booming for several years, thanks largely to the arrival of the Navy’s Trident submarine base at Bangor.

“I guess we’re fortunate that we haven’t had this kind of pressure before, and maybe we’re kind of spoiled,” said Vince Mattson, a director of the citizen Assn. of Bainbridge Communities, which monitors island development. “But we’ve seen what’s happened elsewhere and we certainly don’t want it to happen here.”

Market Planned

In fact, there really is no organized opposition to McDonald’s alone, and the fast-food restaurant is just another development planned in a commercially zoned area near the ferry terminal. Also planned is a Safeway, which would compete with the two locally owned supermarkets on the island.

But a spate of letters in the local weekly newspaper and comments at public meetings already have led the City Council to change the town’s sign ordinance in an effort to restrict the size of McDonald’s Golden Arches logo. The ban on plastic-foam containers, to be considered by the City Council Feb. 2, also is almost sure to pass, council members say.

John Onoda, director of media relations at McDonald’s headquarters in Oakbrook, Ill., said the company’s policy is to comply with all local ordinances.

“You have to be flexible to be as successful as McDonald’s is,” he said.

Still, the fear of a unique community slipping away will remain for some, Chapel said.

“You don’t realize it and you don’t even think about it, but living on an island creates an island mentality,” he said. “It’s quiet and peaceful here and you want to keep it that way. That’s why people moved here--because there are no Golden Arches to drive by on the way home.”