A community Facebook page is urging a boycott against the McDonald’s outlet that served non-halal chicken advertised as halal.
The outlet, 13158 Ford Road, is owned by Finley’s Management Co., which is combining with McDonald’s Corp. to pay a $700,000 class action settlement in a lawsuit brought by Dearborn Heights resident Ahmed Ahmed. A final settlement conference is scheduled for 9 a.m. April 17 before Wayne County Circuit Judge Kathleen Macdonald.
Eric Conn, an attorney representing Finley’s, did not return a telephone message Wednesday or Thursday.
Who is getting the money has been a point of contention for Dearborn attorney Majed Moughni, who runs the Facebook page Dearborn Area Community Members.
Macdonald ruled Jan. 18 that Ahmed was to get about $20,000; his attorneys were to get about $230,000; the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn was to get about $150,000; and the Health Unit on Davison Avenue Inc. in Detroit, also known as HUDA, was to get about $274,000.
Moughni has an issue with HUDA, which is near the intersection of the Lodge and Davison freeways, being part of the settlement because it doesn’t serve Dearborn, where many of the people who ate the haram — or forbidden — chicken live.
According to the suit, the outlet served the non-halal chicken when it ran out of halal chicken, and it didn’t tell customers of the switch. “Halal” refers to meeting Islamic requirements for preparing food. God’s name must be invoked before an animal providing meat for consumption is slaughtered.
Moughni said Wednesday instead of HUDA, that share of the money should go to an entity like the Dearborn Public Schools so it can benefit the community the restaurant serves.
He said the entry received more than 14,500 views in its first 10 days. It had 469 “likes” and 70 “shares.” It has the most views since he launched the page in November 2009.
“The numbers speak for themselves,” said Moughni, who estimated he spent $30 per week for food for himself and his family at the outlet before the boycott. “This is just people on Facebook.
“They stand to lose a lot. It’s not just one person who’s boycotting them.”
He said he used to see five to seven cars in the drive-through line; now he sees three or less.
“McDonald’s has taken a hit,” Moughni said.
One man who commented on the entry, Ali Naji, wrote that if a customer in a Jewish community would have been served non-kosher chicken, it would have been a national story. Sonny Harajly wrote, “I’m sorry, but anyone who expected halal food from McDonald’s was lying to themselves, for they had to have known there was a possibility of eating non-halal.”
Wakeelah Cheatom wrote that the community should be supporting local Muslim-owned restaurants, and Najah Mroue-Hachem wrote that the community should be supporting local Muslim-owned meat markets.
Two others wrote that instead of focusing on the halal issue, members of the community should focus on morals, like not going to bars and nightclubs, women dressing modestly and men being loyal to their wife.
A Fordson High School employee said off the record it’s been a topic of conversation at the school, which is walking distance from the restaurant.
The class action suit covers anyone who ate the non-halal chicken at two McDonald’s in the city’s east end — 13158 Ford Road and 14860 Michigan Ave. — since Sept. 1, 2005. They are believed to be the only McDonald’s in the country to serve halal chicken.
Ahmed ate the non-halal chicken at the Ford Road franchise.
Moughni, who had not been involved in the case before the settlement, asked on Dearborn Area Community Members’ page after Macdonald’s Jan. 18 ruling for page members who ate the food to leave contact information for themselves and others who ate the meat.
Ahmed’s lead attorney, Kassem Dakhlallah of Jaafar & Mahdi Law Group in Dearborn, filed a motion for injunctive relief against Moughni on Jan. 31, and Macdonald ruled in Dakhlallah’s favor Feb. 7. Macdonald ordered Moughni to remove information about the case from the page and put her original class action settlement order and her order against him on the page, which he did. He also was prohibited from communicating about the case without prior written permission from her and Jaafar & Mahdi Law Group.
Moughni filed a motion Feb. 15 to overturn Macdonald’s order; she dismissed it Feb. 22.
McDonald’s filed a motion to ungag Moughni, who has support from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Citizens Litigation Group of Washington, D.C.
Macdonald ruled March 11 that denying the motion was a moot point because she granted McDonald’s request to extend the settlement period to April 8.
The original proposed settlement notice is at www.jaafarandmahdi.com. The firm also has the notice available in Arabic and Bengali. Questions about the settlement can be directed to Dakhlallah or fellow attorneys Michael Jaafar or Zakaria Mahdi at 1-313-846-6400.
Those who object to the proposed settlement, wish to intervene or want to opt out of they’re in the settlement class can mail a written request to the court with a postmark by Monday, April 1, or hand-deliver it by April 8. Anyone who made a submission by Feb. 18, the end of the first notice period, doesn’t have to respond again.
An objection was filed March 20 by attorney Iris Rubin on behalf of Aqil Al-Eisa, Azhar Alghazawi and their two minor children. They’re unhappy the settlement doesn’t provide money for class members.
The lawsuit was filed Nov. 23, 2011.