The only thing worse than an old department store bike is an old French department store bike. At best, it might be useful for riding to the liquor store and back, provided you are already drunk enough to not care what people think of your bike. But even that will require replacing the tires, and just getting the wheels off and on again might be more fun than you've ever wanted to have.

In my opinion, the owner should be offering $35 just to have the awful thing removed from his property.