A man called police in Manchester after finding local KFC branch closed due to behaviourchicken shortage.
The police made an appeal to public after receiving the call requesting public to stop calling 999 to report the issue.
It is the second time the police had to make an appeal regarding the matter when over half of the fast food chain’s 900 UK outlets close across the country due to the lack of a key ingredient ‘chicken’.
Some of the public called emergency services to complaint about the shortage.
Tower Hamlets Metropolitan Police Service in London tweeted: “Please do not contact us about the #KFCCrisis it is not a police matter if your favourite eatery is not serving the menu that you desire.”
Police stated that the behaviour is “putting lives at risk by keeping call handlers from answering real emergencies”.
Superintendent Mark Kenny, who supervises Greater Manchester Police’s call handling team, said: “While some will think this is a harmless prank or joke I want to reiterate the severity of this we had 74 calls to 999 and 154 to 101 during the hour this came in, all of which needed our full attention.”
“Our hard working call handlers answered all but one of the emergency calls but 21 non-emergencies went unanswered. It’s not a stretch to say that, had this man not selfishly called for such a ridiculous reason, we would have been able to help more people who had a real reason to pick up the phone during that time.”
Also added that “We work as hard as we can to answer as many calls as possible but people like this, and others who either misuse the service or call us for reasons they shouldn’t be, put real strain on our already stretched teams.”
Whereas KFC spokesperson today told The Independent 97 that “97 per cent of our restaurants are now open; however, due to the ongoing distribution challenges DHL is experiencing, some restaurants are continuing to serve a reduced menu, including gravy.”
“We’re working as hard as we can to get this sorted out; we know that our gravy is a big favourite!”
