990837 Fire Guts Belgian Mcdonald's RestaurantAugust 13, 1999Brussels - A McDonald's restaurant was destroyed by a fire thought to have been started by animal rights protesters. The drive-through restaurant in the Merksel suburb of Antwerp, Belgium's second city, was totally destroyed, Mark Daemen, head of McDonald's operations in Belgium, told Reuters. Daemen said the precise costs of the fire were not yet known, but the average cost of building a restaurant in Belgium was around 50 million Belgian francs ($1.32 million). He declined to comment on the cause of the fire pending the results of a police investigation, but Belgian media reported that the initials of the British-based Animal Liberation Front (ALF) were daubed at the site. The ALF has in recent years targeted 14 other fast food restaurants in Belgium in protest against the destruction of forests to make way for beef farms.
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