Four teenagers were cited by police in American Fork after they rapped their order at a McDonald’s drive-thru. The boys said the drive-thru worker was not amused and asked them to leave. American Fork police found the teens at a parking lot during a high school volleyball game and issued them a citation for being disorderly in public. An officer said this means the teens created public fear or a public scene and that continuing to rap when they were asked to repeat their order was enough to issue a citation.

The teens said an employee got their plate number and must have called police as they were leaving. They also said they did not think they were breaking the law while rapping their order.

“It’s just a joke. Honestly they didn’t need to take it this far. It’s not a big deal.” said Gage Christensen, 17, one of the teens involved in the rap.

FOX 13 News called the McDonald’s in American Fork and the night manager said the teens were cursing and disrupting business. The teens said that is not true and they were the only ones in the drive-thru.

“Who gives tickets to high school teenagers for rapping into a microphone at McDonalds? Who does this?” said a mother of one of the teens, Sharon Dauwalder. “I just don’t understand why or how this could have been blown out of proportion.”

Thousands nationwide have made their own drive-thru rap videos and posted them on YouTube.

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The store has a television lounge and a pool table, and snacks and acupuncture are free for customers who drop up to $130 an ounce on 16 varieties of marijuana. But a reviewer of the business warns the decor looks a little cliche, what with the Grateful Dead posters on the wall and the Mexican-blanket tablecloths.

The medical marijuana review business is booming as states like Colorado and California have seen an explosion in the number of pot shops.

A Denver alternative newspaper recently posted an ad for what some consider the sweetest job in journalism — a reviewer of the state’s marijuana dispensaries and their products.

Medical marijuana users can also look to dozens of review Web sites, even mainstream rating sites such as Yelp or Citysearch, to find their high. At least five iPhone applications allow weed fans to find the closest place to legally buy bud in the 14 states that allow some sort of medical marijuana.

The Denver paper, Westword, has already has gotten more than 120 applicants, many of them offering to do the reviews for free. When the newspaper settles on a permanent critic for its new “Mile Highs and Lows” column, industry watchers say, it will be the first professional newspaper critic of medical marijuana in the country.

Critic must be able to legally buy medical pot
There’s one condition: The critic has to have a medical ailment that allows them to legally enter a dispensary, and buy and use marijuana.

“More and more people are having the opportunity to use marijuana for whatever illness they have. So we want to be a place they can come to find out which place is the best, the cleanest, the closest, that kind of stuff,” said Joe Tone, Web editor at Westword.

Most current reviews focus on dispensaries in California, the first state in the nation to approve medical marijuana in 1996. Los Angeles now has an estimated 800 medical pot shops, up from only four in 2005. Colorado has more than 100, including one across the street from the state Capitol.

The growth of the business has created clashes with local, state and federal authorities, prompting the U.S. Attorney General to issue guidelines this week telling federal prosecutors that targeting people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws was not a good use of their time.

Sites such as marijuanareviews.com and weedmaps.com boast thousands of users who dish on the merits of various strains, from “White Widow” to “Afghan Gold Seal,” which is cheap but one critic warns “delivers a very heavy stone with the same degree of munchies to go along with it.”

The pot review sites say they’re getting dozens of new users a day as people acquire permission to use medical marijuana but aren’t sure where to go or what kind of pot to use.

“People are really desperate for this kind of information,” said Justin Hartfield, manager of weedmaps.com, a Laguna Hills, Calif.-based Web site that now has five employees and is planning new sites for Colorado. “There are so many places to go that users are really looking for honest reviews.”

The idea for Westword’s column came from a writer who doesn’t use marijuana.

‘Somebody needs to tell what these places are like’
Features writer Joel Warner has been covering Colorado’s medical marijuana industry for years, and he noticed a wide disparity in the places selling pot.

“Some really looked like your college drug dealer’s dorm room. You know, Bob Marley posters on the wall and big marijuana leaf posters,” Warner said. “But then some were so fancy, like dentist’s offices. They had bubbling aquariums in the lobby and were so clean. I thought, somebody needs to review these. Somebody needs to tell people what these places are like.”

So Warner started the column. A back injury made him eligible for the medical card needed to enter Colorado dispensaries. But because Warner doesn’t use marijuana and fears legal trouble if he gives it away, Warner suggested the professional critic who would review both the dispensaries and the products they sell.

The newspaper hasn’t yet settled on a freelance fee for the reviews; it’s currently running an essay contest and sharing excerpts of potential critics talking about what marijuana means to them. “Marijuana isn’t just important to me, it is my life,” gushed one hopeful.

On one recent visit, Warner stopped in the dispensary across the street from the Colorado state Capitol to pick up some cannabis-infused candy. The office was nondescript, a couple couches and a sleek modern glass receptionist’s desk in front of a flat-screen TV

You’d have no idea what the Capitol Hill Medicine Shoppe was if not for a pervasive marijuana smell and a few small marijuana plants plopped on the front desk.

Another shop is located in a charming Victorian with exposed brick walls, cushy leather couches and a coffee counter serves lattes and herbal teas. The drinks, of course, are spiked with cannabis-infused honey tincture that a reviewer says is “guaranteed to give you more than just a caffeine buzz.”

Reviewers say there is plenty of room for more critics.

Photographers are cashing in, too, with new Web sites popping up that look like lush food photography sites — except the pictures feature marijuana instead of fancy desserts. Hartfield just started a new advertising-supported weed photo site called nugporn.com and says there is plenty of work for photographers and even stylists for the pot shots.

“This is professional stuff,” he said.

Laura Kriho, spokeswoman for the Colorado-based Cannabis Therapy Institute, a pro-marijuana legalization group, said it’s natural that the review industry is growing like, well, weeds.

“This is such a new industry. Just like anything else, the market is going to decide which places survive,” she said. “It’s going to be a battle, and patients want to do their research just like for any other medicine.”

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Burger King Corp. plans to swap its generic fast-food feel and bland tiles and tabletops for a vibe that’s more sit-down than drive-through.

As part of a plan to be revealed Wednesday in Amsterdam, the company will announce a massive effort to overhaul its 12,000 locations worldwide.

The sleek interior includes rotating red flame chandeliers, brilliant TV-screen menus and industrial-inspired corrugated metal and brick walls.

“I’d call it more contemporary, edgy, futuristic,” Chairman and CEO John Chidsey told The Associated Press. “It feels so much more like an upscale restaurant.”

But that comes with an upscale price: The new look is expected to cost franchisees, who operate 90 percent of Burger King’s locations, between $300,000 to $600,000 per restaurant.

The company said the new design, called “20/20″ at the Miami-based chain, is already in place at about 60 locations around the world. But it will take years before all its locations are switched.

Burger King franchise owners are contractually required to update their restaurants after a set period, and executives said the redesign will be the primary option for future upgrades. All new restaurants will be built using the plan.

Burger King said it expects about 75 more redesigned restaurants to be open by the end of next year.

So far, remodeled restaurants have seen sales climb about 12 to 15 percent, while restaurants that are torn down and completely rebuilt at the same location have seen sales climb by as much as 30 percent, Chidsey said.

Observers say the hip, urban and masculine elements in the redesign may be a hit with Burger King’s most loyal customers — young men who frequent the chain known as much for its signature Whoppers and “steak burgers” as its sometimes-creepy “King” commercials. But some experts are skeptical about whether sales will climb as much as the company claims and how eager franchise owners will be to part with that kind of cash, particularly in a sour economy.

A group representing Burger King franchise owners didn’t immediately comment.

Chidsey said he thinks most franchise owners, who typically own both their restaurant’s building and the land, won’t have trouble obtaining finanacing and will be swayed once they see how sales can climb.

Morningstar analyst R.J. Hottovy said the reformulated restaurant could keep diners at the table longer but may not draw in enough extra diners to justify the cost.

“I don’t think they’ll change their perception,” he said. “They’re pretty entrenched in their reality.”

Fast-food restaurants typically get almost two-thirds of their business from drive-through or carryout orders. More appealing interiors could help the company compete with its sit-down counterparts that many customers think offer better food and better ambiance.

They might also help Burger King, the No. 2 burger food chain the U.S., stand out from larger rival McDonald’s Corp. and other competitors, including regional chains, who’ve begun to add bigger and better burgers as they clamor for a share of the growing burger market that’s worth $100 billion in the U.S.

“It’s a competitive necessity to square up against the competition,” Chidsey said.

Ron Paul, president of the food consultant company Technomic Inc., said he thinks the redesign shows just how determined Burger King is to compete with “fast casual” restaurant chains such as Chipotle, Starbucks and Panera, which customers think of as a cut above typical fast food.

“People in the fast-food category are recognizing they’ve been losing customers to the fast-casual player,” he said. “What this sounds like is an attempt to get that dining-in business back by making it an attractive environment.”

While the most noticeable changes will be inside restaurants, Burger King executives also plan to tweak exteriors, too, adding more signs proclaiming “Home of the Whopper.”

At the same time as the company is beefing up its value menu, temporarily adding a $1 double cheeseburger to U.S. menus. And it’s also in the final stages of installing new broiler ovens that cut energy use and will let the company roll out new menu items in the future.

On deck is Steakhouse XT burger, which has a thick patty topped with mayonnaise, fried onions, lettuce, steak sauce, cheese and tomatoes. It’s slated to join menus in February.

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