>> my name is maria. i am here supporting my colleagues. i am against the pharmacy. there are a lot of families in that area. the business has the right to open and be a business, but why on our block, when there are so many children and families? >> [speaking spanish]

>> first and foremost, we are all human beings here. i think we all deserve to be treated with the same dignity and equality. i hope you give equality to all the folks in the neighborhood. president peterson: thank you. next speaker, please. >> [speaking spanish]

>> my name is rosie. i have 2 below children. i walk every day on that block. people are often flooding on that block because of drug sales. my question is what assurances do we have that this pharmacy is not going to create additional problems? the situation now is already out of control. >> [speaking spanish] >> i also want to share with you. as i was coming into this hearing, i saw a woman walked at

me and tell me -- she saw a wais latina and said, "immigration is going to come here." why would she say that? we all have a right to participate in this discussion, don't we? >> [speaking spanish] >> i hope you hear me as a mother but also somebody who loves this country because we have our ability to express our opinions. thank you. president peterson: is there anybody else who cares to speak under public comment? i do not believe there is anybody else. we will move into rubato, starting with ms. more than -- we will move into rebuttal,

starting with ms. morgan. you will have three minutes of a bottle. -- of rebuttal. >> pretty impressive showing. construction was almost completed by the time the permit was applied for. you have dated e-mails in my jurisdiction request submission and also in the appeals submission. i believe there is one on may 25 saying they already had the wall for the pharmacy with the windows already up. it is a bit disingenuous to say they did not start construction until may 24. the very thing that generated the jurisdiction request was the construction. another thing is that i seriously doubt that captain garrity came out and support to the pharmacy.

he and had several meetings where he said he was completely neutral and had to be neutral. i think it is unfortunate that the police officers who deal with these people are not allowed to give you their opinion. i think it would be extremely important, but they cannot speak because they are city employees. also, you have a letter from supervisor daly. we have already spoken about him submitting legislation to the board of supervisors to change the permit process. there has been a lot of discussion between the people who are here about how we proceed from here to put an end to this problem. i think it is extremely important that we be able to send a message to the people who are out there buying and selling drugs that it is not going to be tolerated, that the city is behind us. also, the mom's pharmacy as far as i know is a full-scale

independent pharmacy. they do specialize in a chevy, but they have prescriptions for everything else. it seems to me that if bay drugs were concerned about somebody having to walk to a pharmacy they might have found a location that was several blocks away so that the clients would have an option of going either way and being better served. to have them on the same block does not make sense. it is a real safety issue. please. president peterson: thank you. mr. horsfield, you have three minutes of rebuttal. commissioner garcia: identify yourself first, if you would. >> i am a registered pharmacist in california and several other states. i own a pharmacy in seattle and

am attempting to open this pharmacy in the tenderloin. i envisioned the tenderloin as being a tremendously underserved area. i think the residents are actually being cheated out of their right to a caring pharmacy that will serve their needs. i see i could have a tremendous benefit in the area. i was always depicted as someone from a different place and i do not know the area. whatever. i live several years in the bay area. i am in the process of moving back here. i am not taking this as just a business venture. i plan to be the pharmacist in charge. i will be here all the time. if you look at the difference between mom's and myself, you will see that my pharmacy is an open pharmacy reverses -- versus

being behind two inches of glass. i do not know if you could practice pharmacy and give the public there adequate due. they deserve better than being in a prison-type environment. i designed the pharmacy to be open and to service the people in the tenderloin. i do know the business plan of mom's pharmacy and they are specifically especially promising. i do have a lot of specialty experience but my promise you will be a general pharmacy open to the families. i will carry antibiotics for the kids. i will take care of senior citizens, diabetics, people with handicaps. it is a general pharmacy. i truly believe that the tenderloin has nothing like i will offer them.

i am here to serve. that block was depicted as being a bad place for drug dealers. i think actually we will clean up the block. we are going to get a lot of police attention. captain garrity made a vow at one of the meetings saying if he has to stand at a corner himself he will protect that area. i think that especially the residents of the immediate area up will have a tremendous benefit. that behavior that is going on now will not be tolerated. through the experience i have as a pharmacist, i know exactly what i am dealing with. i think i could add -- i am not doing this lightly. i am doing this very knowledgeably. >commissioner garcia: you

brought up the issue of captain guarantee. it was mentioned there was some letter with specific requests that he would like having to do with security. can we get a copy? do you have it with you today? >> we do not have a copy but we can get it to you. commissioner garcia: it was stated that if these conditions are met he is in support of that? >> he is saying he is neutral. he is obviously not against it. he is not saying it is bad for the neighborhood. he is maintaining a neutral position. he realizes that we are a legitimate business and trying to bring a community pharmacy to the area. commissioner garcia: i think you answered my question. thank you. there was an allegation that is started this work prior to obtaining a permit. >> that is not accurate.

i have been called a liar several times. we specifically followed every rule the city put in front of us. obviously, the reason for not notifying is no one required it. we planned on getting the place ready and then going out and presenting it to the community. commissioner garcia: thank you, mr. forte. vice president goh: just along the lines of the police presence, i was wondering how this could be accomplished in a city where police officers are stressed so thinly and have not managed to clean up the block yet. i do not see how having a pharmacy there would help them do that. >> you mentioned mom's pharmacy several times in this meeting in the situation there. they have a guard. they keep that area clear. captain charity did make a pledge at a meeting saying that

he will keep that corner clean. we were thinking of actually extending our reach to protect the area at even more, but he said it is not necessary. he will take care of that area. today, which i was surprised, there was a police person standing on the corner. sure enough, the whole area was cleared out. vice president goh: you mentioned that mom's has glass and things that keep the pharmacist from the people. you do not intend to do that. >> again, many people do not agree with this, but i think that you should -- i would like -- when a customer comes into a pharmacy i own, i would like to shake their hand, welcome them to my pharmacy. vice president goh: how will you

then protect your business from people who might rub it at gunpoint? >> if someone brandishes a gun, like every other business in the world, we cooperate. vice president goh: there is a reason the other pharmacies have certain protections. i think there is a reason they have those things in place. thank you. president peterson: can you just walk me through what you do plan to sell? >> what we do plan to sell is we plan to be a general community pharmacy. president peterson: what does that mean? >> that means the whole community, we will serve as those needs. if a woman comes in with birth control pills, we will have birth control in stock. if someone comes in for

diabetics applies we will have that. if someone comes in for a kid's antibiotics, we will have that. president peterson: you must have some business plan or intention in mind now, right? >> we are going to be a general community pharmacies serving the needs of the area. president peterson: are you selling anything besides pharmaceuticals? >> i do not think we will. i mean, over the counter things like cough and cold -- i consider that a pharmacy item. vitamins. president peterson: nothing like tissues or the sort of items? >> will probably have tissues. we will not have a lawn chairs, but we will probably have some basic needs. president peterson: we have talked a little bit about credibility. if the permit is granted on may

24 and worked is completed june 25, and final inspection is approved --he department issues a permit on may 24, 2010, work commences immediately and was completed on june 25, 2010, with all final inspections approved. acsc was issued the same day. it is hard to think that all worked. it was done in a month and a day. did i read it incorrectly? >> i want to answer my experience with pharmacies. there is not much to it. i completed a pharmacy in the seattle area. a week and a half. you coordinate everything. everyone is ready to go. everything is pre made. things are delivered. you get the crew in there

working. it was seven to 10 days. everything was coordinated. it is expensive to have people hanging around for a month, you know? commissioner fung: last question from me is how do you validate prescriptions. >> how do i validate the prescriptions? what type of prescription? i mean, if you brought in a prescription for prenatal vitamins -- commissioner fung: a general question. >> it really depends. usually, i will know the provider and will recognize the signature. usually, i will know from how the prescription is written out whether it makes sense or not. i have seen a forged prescriptions in the past. i am pretty good at figuring out when something does not make sense.

ok. it is a term called professional judgment. in other words, 35 years of experience, if you hand me a piece of paper i can tell you whether it comes from a doctor. the valid prescription we all know is part of the picture. i am charged with only dispensing medicine that is for legitimate medical use. selling your drugs on the sidewalk is not a legitimate use. i will use everything in my power not to do that, including contacting physicians, contacting police departments, or whatever. i have gone to court in the past where people have tried to pull things and tried to complain about it and sold it. president peterson: thank you. commissioner garcia: if i could just go one quick item with you, sir.

>> i have one more thing. real-time data base. california is unique in that dealing with a controlled drug prescription there is something -- a program where i can go online to look up the prescription. i can see a person pick history of controlled substances. any pharmacy can do that. i hope they are. i plan on doing that. commissioner garcia: as has been mentioned, we have supervisor daly. it is his district. he said he was asking us to uphold the appeal and see whether the proper permits have been filed prior to the construction of the pharmacy, which is an undesirable used in this area. for the record, all permits are

in order. everything has been done. >> scott sanchez, planning department's staff. the answer to that question is yes. commissioner garcia: thank you. >> mr. morgan, is in response to the commissioner's question? >> i would like to reiterate first of all that there are those stated e-mails that say most of the construction was done by may 25. that cannot be ignored. i cannot think of any other reason for them not to apply for a permit other than it would go up on mthe dbi website. they did not do any of reach until the jurisdiction request was filed. commissioner garcia: they already responded. vice president goh: i thought

she was answering commissioner fun. -- fung. commissioner garcia: i think we have had enough discussion. president peterson: thank you. >> the matter is submitted. commissioner garcia: i wish we had captain verity's letter. -- captain garrity's letter. there have been times -- i am not saying this to discredit ms. morgan. there have been times when the police sent representatives to our board to weigh in on issues that affect the community. they have done it with certain massage parlors. they have done it with mcd's. they have done it in uniform and i think the captain has come himself. why they have chosen to not be

here tonight i could only speculate if i were to say anything about that. the reason i wish i had the letter is because i think we have the ability to nsr a permit even if a cfc has been issued. we would want something greater than assurance we would be able to codify. in the absence of that, and maybe we will deal with that later, it does seem unfortunate that someone would choose to open a business at pill hill that might exacerbate a crime problem. but it might go the other way. you hate to tell in neighborhood what is going to happen and how you feel about it when you do not live in that neighborhood. there is a certain amount of hubris to that. but i will make a comment that in the past it has been shown

that good businesses in an area will push crime out and will approve an area. i intend to uphold this permit and i am hoping that is what would happen. i am very sympathetic to this neighborhood. i do not want to direct what the opposition should do with their time and i do not want to direct how some other commissioners should deal with this. but if i were the appellants and the people behind this appeal i would go before two other commissions on a regular basis until something was done. the first would be before the planning commission to see if some sort of restriction can be placed on businesses that are bad for the area and might represent over saturation of a given type of business. it has been suggested there are tea 00 many pharmacies in this area. that might be the oversaturation issue. -- it has been suggested there are too many pharmacies in this

area. that might be over saturation issue. crime is worse in the tenderloin. i understand it is worse. i would appeal regularly, if i was this neighborhood, before the police commission. say these are horrible circumstances. we are families. we are trying to raise children here. we care about our neighborhood. we care about the safety of our neighborhood. we cannot solve this problem. you want to worry about community standards. you want to worry about the fact that people in the neighborhood may be concerned about a project. you want to pay some attention to that. but there are also writes. i think mr. forte seems to be a genuine person who hopefully will come to care about, if he does not already, this neighborhood. he has a business he wants to thrive. hopefully, over time, it will do exactly that.

it will help the area. those for the moment are my comments. commissioner fung: actually, this case is quite difficult. it is difficult for a number of reasons. the community and certain organizations are asking this commission to take a policy position, and there is a supervisor who writes a letter. we do not know what he has been doing in response to the same issue. it is not a small issue, and the question is that it is not also an issue of maintaining community planning when i ask that question. it is a question of what the

will is and the organizing that supports that will to create a policy position that most of the people want. what makes it difficult for me is the fact that nobody here has brought forward why this particular permit was either issued in error or was issued based upon problems by either the reviewing departments -- either of the reviewing departments. that creates a problem for us in terms of how do we adjudicate. i support the concept that there can be an over proponents -- prepondancácy=ó=twf;=djte there are reasons why certain

uses congregate in certain areas. there is a profit margin there. in this case, there is no doubt there are way too many pharmacies. considering the other types of uses that can be inferred, i am faced with a decision i have no legal basis, potentially, to do. there are some things i could say about the process that i think may not necessarily be appropriate. that is that the planning department is charged with looking at things besides just over the counter review. they must also be looking at issues that relate to a neighborhood. this neighborhood has had a lot of resources thrown at it, but obviously there are still many problems there. and i think that the departments

need to be conscious of that and not do something over the counter. i am in between right now. vice president goh: maybe i will jump in because i think i have the answer to the legal hook we need. business and tax regulation code 26 grants us, the board of appeals, very broad discretion to consider what is in the best interest of the community and a broader discretion than the planning department, in that we are empowered to deny permits even if that our code compliant. the planning department has to perhaps grant a permit -- i see mr. sanchez nodding -- that is code compliant. we have broad discretion. the language of the code is that we can consider the effect of the proposed business upon

surrounding property upon its residents. that is what i suggest we do this evening. as one of the speakers said, it seems to me that bringing more pills to pill hill to the detriment of families and the elderly -- we heard from a senior woman that she was mugged. and to the detriment also of the child care center, the boys and girls club, and schools and other facilities. it does not make sense to me. the business did not do outreach. maybe they did not have to do outreach, but they did not do out reach until the neighbors brought it before us and we granted jurisdiction. there is precedent in mom's pharmacy and the upsurge of drug

sales when it opened. we heard from the attorney that research suggests that the market would need a supermarket, a post office, or a pharmacy. with all the promises nearby, it makes sense to me to try one of the other choices. i wonder if what commissioner fung said is true. there is a profit margin there. why would there be a profit margin in a pharmacy? it would not be for a good reason. i was troubled by the mom who said she was threatened by someone saying immigration might be there if you come to speak. that is not ok. we have to be here to hear people from the community. i do think this permit was issued in error. the construction was