Spirits ran high for Lucky Bayview’s grand opening on Oct. 26, 2022. A quaint picket fence corralled a semi-circle of local media, jostling for camera position in front of a stage featuring Mayor London Breed, Supervisor Shamann Walton, and an Francisco Police Captain David Moran.
“The opening of Lucky Bayview is a major step in improving food access and food security in what has historically been a food desert,” Breed announced, recalling the food desert of her childhood in the Fillmore. “This is really going to be a gamechanger for Bayview Hunters Point.”
“This was a hard-fought battle for many years,” Walton said, noting that Walgreens left the same location in 2019 after 30 years and that the community had to fight against a cannabis dispensary taking its place.
Three years later, parent-company SaveMart announced Lucky Bayview would close on Nov. 1, the one-month notice catching San Francisco officials by surprise. The store’s “small footprint” model of 9,549 square feet shielded the corporation from San Francisco’s Neighborhood Grocery Protection Act, which requires grocery stores of 10,000 square feet to give the community six-month’s notice before leaving…