City Mulls Buying Troubled Haight McDonald's, Flipping It For Affordable Housing: SFist

A McFlurry of crime and sketchiness has always surrounded the Haight and Stanyan McDonald's location, even before a daytime shooting there last Thursday afternoon. The unhealthy scene has long been a one-stop shop for both marijuana nuggets and Chicken McNuggets, and back in 2015 the city threatened to sue McDonald’s claiming that “In the last six months the police have recovered more than 100 doses of LSD, over two pounds of marijuana, 88.5 grams of psilocybin (psychedelic mushrooms), more than half of a pound of marijuana edibles, and hashish from drug dealers selling their products on [McDonald's property].” The loitering problem has historically been so bad that in 2010, this particular McDonald’s location eliminated the Dollar Menu five years before the company did so nationwide.

Board of Supervisors president London Breed has had enough indigestion from this McDonald’s, which sits in her district. Breed has proposed that the city buy the McDonald’s and turn the site into affordable housing, Matier & Ross reported in the Chronicle. The plan has apparently been submitted to the McDonald’s Corp., with a McDonald’s spokesperson telling the Chron that “the proposal is currently under review.”

Breed is bothered by the number of crime and drug trafficking complaints she receives regarding this location. “I just feel bad because most of the time it’s people who have children,” Breed told NBC Bay Area. "I have proposed purchasing the site. Why not let the city develop this particular site?"

The city has sent a letter of intent to McDonald’s offering to buy the property, whose address is technically 700-730 Stanyan Street. Mayor Ed Lee’s spokesperson Deirdre Hussey told the Chronicle, “We are waiting to hear a response to our proposal.”

It’s not the first time the city has tried to buy this McDonald’s, whose property is owned by the the McDonald’s Corp. The previous owner has been pressured to add security guards and security cameras after the threatened 2015 lawsuit, though a new franchisee took over the location in January of this year.

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