San Francisco was forced to erect metal barricades in front of a McDonald’s after vagrants and illegal vendors crowded the sidewalk outside – as the city grapples with its crime and homelessness crises.
Local police have erected what they call an “event fence” around Mickey D’s next to a stop on the city’s BART line on 24th Street.
The barricades have been erected since at least Sunday to prevent illegal street vending bazaars from congregating more in the area.
Fences have been erected at the BART station itself over the past decade as part of a city-led effort to get rid of the illegal vendors — but instead they set up shop just across the street from McDonald’s.
A door of the fast food giant with a sign saying “Come in” is unusable due to the new blockages.
San Francisco continues to struggle with its crime and homelessness crises, this time even going so far as to barricade a local McDonald’s to keep tramps and vendors out
The original fence around the BART station didn’t fare well: According to SFist, it was torn down by protesters about a month after it was installed. The whole ordeal led to a licensing system and a greater police presence at the station.
In a statement, San Francisco Police Department said the new barriers were placed outside the fast-food chain to make it easier to walk through the neighborhood.
“The 24th Street and Mission Street area event fencing was constructed in collaboration with local businesses, residents and community stakeholders to facilitate pedestrian movement in the neighborhood while ensuring ADA compliance.”
They did not say how long the barriers would remain in place.
has reached out to McDonald’s for comment.
San Francisco has had a myriad of homelessness and crime problems since the pandemic began, leading to a mass exodus across the city.
Researchers tracked smartphone use in 63 cities and found that San Francisco, which is struggling with crime waves and homelessness on its streets, is seeing just 32 percent of the activity it saw before the pandemic.
According to a disturbing report, 95 downtown retailers – more than half of the total – have closed since the start of the COVID pandemic.
Local police have erected what they call an “event fence” around Mickey D’s next to a stop on the city’s BART line on 24th Street
In a statement, the San Francisco Police Department said it was doing this in cooperation with people in the area to make it easier to get around
The location is often the location of both homeless and illegal vendors
At least one more is to follow: Williams-Sonoma announces closure in 2024.
Of the 203 retailers that opened in the city’s Union Square area in 2019, only 107 are still operating, a 47 percent drop in just a few years battered by the pandemic.
Heavyweights include Brooks Brothers, Ray Ban, Christian Louboutin, Lululemon and Marmot.
Since the pandemic began in 2020, a further 12 new retailers have opened in the region, but already two have either closed or are planning to close.
San Francisco’s decline was highlighted again by a sharp rise in drug overdose deaths among the city’s homeless population.
The city saw a staggering 41 percent increase in drug-related deaths in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period last year, as fentanyl devastated the city’s homeless population.
According to recent data from the city’s coroner, 200 people died from overdoses in California’s coastal center between January and March, compared to 142 deaths in 2022.
That’s one overdose death every 10 hours in a city whose reputation as a seaside gem has been tarnished by rising crime, drugs and homelessness, though it’s still home to tech billionaires.
The overdose victims were mostly black and Hispanic men, many of whom lived in the Tenderloin neighborhood, a gritty inner-city neighborhood where a drug treatment center closed in December.
San Francisco saw a staggering 41 percent increase in drug-related deaths in the first quarter of 2023
Addicts openly smoke drugs on the sidewalk in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, where overdose deaths have skyrocketed in recent months
Street dwellers were particularly hard hit: the number of homeless people who died from drug overdoses doubled.
Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid commonly smuggled out of Mexico that can be deadly in even small amounts, was found in 159 deaths.
The drug is 50-100 times stronger than morphine.
It’s cheap, packs up small, is relatively easy to smuggle into the US, and gets mixed up in pills that then claim the lives of users who are often unaware they’re taking something so potent.
Methamphetamine and cocaine were also present, albeit to a lesser extent.
The sharp spike in deaths began in December and continued into a record-breaking January.
This followed the closure of the Tenderloin Center, where addicts were allowed to use drugs and Narcan was available for those who overdid it.