A Tuesday afternoon fight, reportedly among a group of juveniles, in the parking lot of the Castro Safeway, led to shots fired and two minor injuries — including one bullet that went through the glass of a restaurant window across the street.

The shooting, which SFist noted in yesterday's morning roundup, was initially reported to only have injured one person likely involved in the fight, and that person was reportedly hit in the leg.

The incident happened outside the Safeway at Church and Market streets around 4:45 p.m. on Tuesday. Officers arrived at 4:49 p.m., and as KTVU initially reported, they found one victim with the gunshot wound to the leg who was transported to the hospital. That victim is reportedly a 20-year-old male.

SFGate now reports that there was a second injury of an 85-year-old woman who was, at the time, dining at Woodhouse Fish Co., directly across Market Street. Restaurant owner Dylan MacNiven confirmed to SFGate that the woman was sitting at a table by the front windows, and he said, "It's unclear if it was glass or the bullet [that] actually grazed her." MacNiven also said that he'd been in contact with the woman, who was taken to the hospital to be treated for her wound, and "she is in good spirits as of yesterday."

Woodhouse Fish Co. had to close for the evening on Tuesday because the restaurant became an active crime scene, and MacNiven says the staff there remains "shaken."

While the Castro Safeway has been a magnet for sketchy behavior and encampments around the edges of its parking lot in recent years, crime at the store has been mostly limited to shoplifting and shopping cart thefts. The latter problem, in which a reported 160 carts were stolen last year, led to new gates being installed near the store's doors in July 2021, and all the carts being moved inside, as Hoodline reported. The store's management also attached tall metal rods to the sides of each cart, apparently to make them harder to push out the door.

In October, the store reduced its operating hours for the second time in five years, closing nightly at 9 p.m. A rep for Safeway said this decision was made "due to an increasing amount of theft at the store."

The store previously was open 24 hours a day, though back in March 2017 the store also curtailed its hours for several months, closing at 1:30 a.m. each night and reopening at 5 a.m. That led to some outcry in the neighborhood, and it was not long before the Safeway was back to being a 24-hour store, as of September 2017.  

Photo: Giorgio Trovato