The McDonald¡¯s fast-food chain apologized Friday for a sign at one of its outlets in western Tokyo barring homeless people from entering.

A Twitter user who visited the McDonald¡¯s in the Keio Hachioji Station building uploaded a picture of the sign, which read: ¡°Those whom we deem unfit to use our store, including the unclean and the homeless, are asked not to enter.¡±

Quick to grab online attention, the post met with mixed responses. Some condemned the sign as a discriminatory slur against homeless people while others defended it as a reasonable attempt to keep the restaurant ¡°clean¡± and ¡°free of bad smell.¡±

Takuya Ota, a spokesman at McDonald¡¯s Co. (Japan) Ltd. headquarters, said the firm wasn¡¯t aware of the sign until after it had sparked an online outcry and made headlines, even though the sign had been up for more than a year.

Ota said that no other McDonald¡¯s outlets have this kind of sign and that the decision to post it in the Hachioji outlet, which is open 24 hours a day, was made at that location.

After being instructed by the headquarters, the outlet took down the notice Wednesday and replaced it with a new one declaring its intention to deny entry to anyone ¡°likely to cause trouble to others¡± through such behavior as being loud, sleeping or lacking hygiene. It does not specifically mention homeless people.

Ota said each McDonald¡¯s outlet has traditionally been allowed to handle ¡°improper behavior¡± by customers at its own discretion. However, the firm admitted that the Hachioji store had acted inappropriately.

¡°We examined the sign and decided there was no good reason to specifically refer to homeless people,¡± Ota said, stressing that it was never the outlet¡¯s intention to deny entry exclusively to homeless people.