he, in his statement to the board, indicated that the point that the store does sell cigarettes attract people into the store so that the purchase everything that is for sale there. so a 25 basis pension would have a serious financial impact. we are asking the board of appeals to consider the totality of the circumstances, the fact that this has been a business that has operated for 37 years and has paid taxes, that has employed people, that generates revenue for san francisco, and that would be negatively impacted by such a long suspension of sales of the cigarettes. i would like the opportunity to

at least look at the id of the minor to see whether or not that person does look older not. it is true, however, that the employee did review the identification, miss read it, and sold the sale. the employee is not here today, but the narrative is that it was this employee the works part time that did make the sale in this case. president goh: can you explain why it is relevant to see the idea of the minor if the employee did look at the idea and it showed the decoy as being under age? >> it is my understanding that the employee's first language is spanish. he may have misread the identification. clearly, the identification showed that the person was underage. nonetheless, it has been a factor in some of these cases.

i believe the last time i was here at one of the hearings, an issue of the identity of the face specter of the id for some of the decoys does not represent what the decoys look back. given this particular individual's emotional state, there may have been some confusion between the face he looked at and the dates on the identification for the board to consider. president goh: i think i understand. thank you. commissioner fung: one of the points being made by appellant or by you was that there is no record of the tickets. >> i think what the column means by that is he received a citation and the citation indicated that it was a misdemeanor and he was cited to appear at 850 brian street on the date at the bottom of the citation. he did appear on that day.

the clerk told him -- i was not his attorney at that point. the clerk in room 101 at 850 bryant st. said there was no record of this having ever been filed as a criminal complaint. not that the citation itself does not exist. the other point i did want to make was that the citation -- the date on the citation, i believe, is december 18. let me just check the sedation -- the citation date -- the narrative was the 19th. the citation is december 18. the narrative supplied by the department was september 19. the last time i was here, there was a discrepancy between the citation and the date contained in the police report. the board did take that into consideration and fashion a

remedy to reduce the time of the suspension. commissioner hwang: i have one question. there was a sub middle -- submittal on the part of your client. it is two pages. i was perplexed by 0.7 and 8 and wanted you to address them. -- i was perplexed by points seven and eight and wanted you to address them. >> you wanted me to address? commissioner hwang: paragraphs 7 and 8. i am just curious about those. there is an accusation pointed at the decoy.

>> i did not procure this document. i guess it is illegal for a minor to purchase cigarettes, but that is really not what we are here to determine today. commissioner hwang: so you did not help prepare this document? >> i was not retained until after this document was submitted. i think sometimes people in their own defense -- commissioner hwang: got it. thank you. >> dr. ojo? >> commissioner, good evening. the department of public health found out the appellant was doing business and violated the

san francisco health code and the california penal code when he sold cigarettes to a 16-year- old minor decoy on december 19. i do not have any reason to doubt the police officers. they are well-trained officers. i do not have any reason to doubt they were using somebody that does not look his or her age. if this were the case, the clerk did look at the id, whether or not he is able to read the id is not the issue at this point. on december 8, 2010, in accordance with the health code, the department suspended the permit to operate for 25 days.

in the appellate's argument, it states the suspension or loss of income is his employee's responsibility. he is not taking responsibility for what his agent in this case did at the store. the agent was working on behalf of this -- on behalf of the owner, and does not have the fall responsibility of the permit requirement for that store. in the counsel's argument, he said the suspension was too severe. the appellant has failed to provide documentation as to the percentage of his store's record -- stores' revenue that is based on tobacco sales. affidavits submitted by our

client and the police department does say they misstated the incident as being september 18. they did fly -- did file an incidental supplemental report saying it took place on september 19. we personally fell the appellant's agent was acting on the appellant's behalf and it was the appellant's opportune sheet -- responsibility to ensure his agents are well trained in the law of selling cigarettes to minors. the suspension, i think, is very reasonable. the department asks that the board denied the appeal. president goh: i need to see a

written law from the health department where it says -- can you talk about how shopkeeper's know about the prohibition and the penalty for selling cigarettes to minors? >> at the point of issuance of permits to operate, usually the applicant, in this case the appellant, received that information. during our routine inspection, my inspectors also mentioned it to the operators the need to display the products properly and the need for them not to sell to minors. the tobacco-free projects also mail out reminders every year to all the establishments. president goh: do these

materials indicate that for a first offense it is up to 90 days? commissioner hwang: the attorney suggested this was a cookie cutter penalty other people receive the same penalty. can you address that? >> the department is very, very sensitive about this issue. i think the department has been very fair that if it is your first offense they do not want to go to high, and therefore they allow 45 days. in some cases where there is a compelling reason to go lower,

the department has done that. but we want to be consistent. we do not want to water the lawn down. we found this was very adequate. commissioner hwang: as to the other matters that were before the department, it was for purposes of consistency? >> there could be some cases where it was the second offense and the penalty was much higher. i cannot say that everyone received 35 days. >> is there any public comment? seeing none, we will move to a bottle. -- to rebuttal.

>> on the day that i was there, of all the people, on the first instance, regardless of circumstances, the same penalty was handed out. there was a statement about the reduced revenues submitted to the board. they said the sale of cigarettes was about 10%, but again the cigarettes generate revenues in all the other items for sale in the store. the individual that sold the cigarettes is no longer employed. there were the notices of what any employee of selling cigarettes would have to look for in terms of the date. they were up. the employee reviewed all of the restrictions that must be checked in order to sell cigarettes to a minor. further, i believe it is the

testimony of mr. avef abdelhim that he was not ever notified about what the actual penalty would be. he does take responsibility for his employee for the sale of cigarettes to minors. i urge you to consider again that he has been in business for 37 years without one complaint, and that there is a discrepancy in the dates. have you ever come up when the department came to you for an inspection -- were you advised of what the penalty would be for the sale of cigarettes for a minor? >> they did not show me a brochure or anything to show what the penalty is. i know it is illegal to sell cigarettes to minors, but they never showed me the penalty. i was not sure if it was a fine

or something. i did not know what the penalty is if i sell to a minor.i did n. i just showed the law and what to do. commissioner peterson: what are the policies you have in place to train your employees? >> there is a sign to not sell to minors, period, before even those restrictions. i always believed it is not right.

i do not allow them to buy alcohol or tobacco. and i always put signs out there as you walk by the cash register that you cannot buy cigarettes if you are under 18. you cannot buy alcohol if you are under 21. and they know that. commissioner peterson: thank you. >> i worked at the store with my father. it is a family business. the store needs a family of six. we were not aware of what the fine or anything is in the

store. i have been working in the store with my bad for 11 years. we always bring in a sharp team. we checked ids. there are 21 and over science. -- and over signs. commissioner peterson: thank you. >> dr. ojo. >> commissioners, i think the argument of the appellant is not possible at all. if he does not know the consequences, why tell his employees not to sell cigarettes to minors? secondly, prior to issuance of the permit to operate, like i said earlier, the department gives them all the requirements. i do not know what type of establishment he has. if he has purely a grocery

store, this law requires that we inspected twice a year. it is a restaurant -- it is not a restaurant, but a grocery store, but if it serves sandwiches, we inspect more than two times a year. every time my inspector is on site, they do a check for the display and they do make sure that there are signs that you cannot sell to minors and there are consequences. the consequences are given to them when they apply for the permit to operate. this is not the first year we have been enforcing the law. this has been discussed many, many times. i strongly feel the operator knows what the consequences are. he has heard about it from his friends, suspension for a various number of days for sales to minors. i believe in the 25 days the

department is imposing on him is very generous. they were allowed to give him and 90 days, but they gave him 25 days. >> the matter is submitted. commissioner peterson: i found the citadel -- the submittal had a lack of contrariness and responsibility. at the same time, i am sympathetic to the small business. but i agree that 25 days is far less than what could of been imposed. those are my comments. -- commissioner hwang: president goh: i agree. sometimes we continue to look at the id, but in a case where the clerk looked at the id and saw the girl was actively 16 i do

not see how that would be relevant to us our council. -- uus or counsil. -- counsel. i will move to uphold the department. >> the motion is to deny the appeal and uphold the department. on that motion -- commissioner fung: aye. commissioner peterson: aye. commissioner hwang: aye. >> the vote is 4-0 and the motion carries. president goh: thank you. is there any further business? >> there is no further business. president goh: we are adjourned.

because we have a great waste water system here in san francisco, we do about 80 million gallons of waste water here in san francisco, which means we basically fill up 120 olympic sized swimming pools each and every day here in the

city. we protect public health and safety and environment because we are discharging into the bay and into the ocean. this is essentially the first treatment here at our waste water treatment facility. what we do is slow down the water so that things either settle to the bottom or float to the top. you see we have a nice selection of things floating around there, things from bubble gum wrappers, toilet paper, whatever you dump down the toilet, whatever gets into our storm drains, that's what gets into our waste water treatment and we have to clean. >> see these chains here, this keeps scum from building up. >> on this end in the liquid end basically we're just trying to produce a good water product that doesn't negatively impact the receiving water so that we

have recreation and no bad impact on fish and aquatic life. solids is what's happening. . >> by sludge, what exactly do you mean? is that the actual technical term? . >> it's a technical term and it's used in a lot of different ways, but this is organic sewage sludge. basically what it is is, oh, maybe things that come out of your garbage disposal, things that are fecal in nature. it's sludge left in the water after the primary treatment, then we blend those two over and send them over to digestion. this building is built to replace tanks here that were so odoriferous they would curl your hair. we built this as an interim

process. >> is there a coagulant introduced somewhere in the middle of this? . >> this coagulant brings solids together and lets the water run through. that gives us more time in the digestion process, more time to reduce the amount of solids. these are the biggest ones in the world, like we always like to do in san francisco. they are 4 meter, there's none like it in the world. >> really? wow. >> three meters, usually. we got the biggest, if not the best. so here we are. look at that baby hum. river of sludge. >> one of the things is we use bacteria that's common in our own guts to create this reduction. it's like an extra digestion. one of the things we have to do to facilitate that is heat that sludge up and keep it at the

temperature our body likes, 98.6 degrees. >> so what we have here is the heat exchanger for digester no. 6. these clog up with debris and we're coming in to -- next wet weather season so we always come through here, clean them out, make sure that we get maximum heat exchange during the colder wet weather. sludge season. >> rubber glove. >> right here. >> rubber glove, excellent. all right, guys. >> thank you. >> good luck. >> this is the full on hazmat. . >> residual liquid. we're taking it time to let it drain. we don't want to get sludge on it necessarily. take your time. stand on the side of it.

. >> should we let it release for a while? . >> let it release. >> is that the technical term? . >> this is the most important bolt on the whole thing. this is the locking bolt. it locks this thing right in place. so now. >> take your hammer and what we want to do, we get rag build up right in here. the hot water recirculates right in here, the sludge recirculates in here. the sludge sometimes has rags in it. all we want to do is go around the clean the rags. let me show you how. take the slide hammer, go all the way through the back, go around. >> got you. >> during the real rainy

season, how does that change the way dealing with this job? is it a lot more stuff in there? . >> what we do, charles, we do this quarterly. every four months we go around and clean all the heat exchangers so we don't have a large build up. . >> go around? . >> yeah. (sound of hammering). >> what i'm trying to do, charles, is always pull it out on the low stroke. >> right. so you are not, like, flying out. now talk about clean up.

. >> then where does this stuff get deposited? . >> we're going to dump it in a debris box and it will go back to the plant. >> if you think back, the romans came up with a system of plumbing that allowed us it use water to transport waste away from the hub of civilization, which enabled cities to grow. . >> you have a large bowl, a drive motor and another motor with a planetary gearbox with differential pressure inside there. the large mass up there spinning separating the solids from the liquid. we have to prevent about once a month, we go in there grease those, change the oil, check the vibration levels.