After years of safety issues and months of legal problems, the McDonald's franchise at Haight and Stanyan has reached a new agreement with the San Francisco City Attorney. 

Per the announcement today, it is making the following changes to "prevent drug trafficking and related lawless activities". It has:

• contracted the services of a security guard to be present at the property during all hours of operation;
• increased the number of security cameras;
• added fencing to secure the landscaped portion of the property;
• increased lighting on the property’s exterior;
• restricted parking access when the restaurant is closed;
• taken reasonable measures to prohibit loitering;
• and will consult with the San Francisco Police Department each month for the first six months following the agreement to review safety and security issues.
• The agreement also provides that restaurant management will report the storage or sale of any illegal narcotics they observe, and make reasonable efforts to remove people engaged in the use or possession of illegal drugs.
  

The franchise has been a magnet for trouble (some examples here, here, and here). Partly because it's located across from a main entrance to Golden Gate Park, it has served as a waypoint for the wide variety of characters that pass through or even live in the park. 

City Attorney Dennis Herrera sent a demand letter to McDonald’s headquarters in May, letting the international corporation know that it may be legally accountable for "narcotics trafficking" and "other public nuisance conditions" that have "generated nearly 1,110 calls" to SFPD since January 2012.

The letter and attached complaint were a pre-litigation move, as we noted then, that preceded any legal action the city might take against the Oak Brook, IL-based conglomerate. Herrera's letter said that persistent criminal activity at the 730 Stanyan St. location had given rise to "other public nuisance conditions."

Although the announcement is only out today, we had already seen indications of changes on the way after the city got involved. In April we had noticed that the franchise, owned by C.C. Yin, no longer appeared to have a security guard present like it had in years prior. Within a week of the demand letter in May, a guard was back.