r/PoolesvilleNews

POOLESVILLE, Md. – McDonald’s franchise owner told town commissioners Monday night that his restaurant has become a daily scene of drug use, property destruction, and threats against employees — and that a serious incident is imminent.

“We are just a day away from a horrific accident happening,” Brian Cleghorn, who has owned the Poolesville McDonald’s since 1991, told commissioners at the May 18 meeting. “The kids are out of control and have a complete disregard for authority or respect for property.”

Cleghorn said the restaurant — which he called the most costly of his seven locations for property destruction — faces chronic damage year after year, far exceeding anything at his restaurants in Germantown, Gaithersburg, and Frederick. “What’s most important to me and what concerns me the most,” he said, “is the safety and security of my employees and my customers.”

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. — County Executive Mark Elrich used his weekly address to launch a multi-front attack on the county council’s budget approach, warning that the council’s plan will leave homeowners paying more, create structural deficits for years to come, and saddle his successor with “an enormous problem.”

GAITHERSBURG, Md. — Gaithersburg committed to a $36.1 million renovation of 8 and 12 South Summit Avenue to replace its current City Hall — a cost that has grown 54 percent from the project’s $23.5 million authorization — and construction has not yet begun. The Mayor and City Council approved that figure unanimously on May 4, 2026.

That commitment came as the city was still closing out the financial fallout from its previous civic construction project: a decade-long, $28.4 million conversion of a commercial office building into a new police station that ended in a secret contractor settlement and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees charged to city taxpayers.