this was clear and concise and the geography. the planning department submitted a report about the efforts to refine and clarify the restaurant definitions. at that time, we came and presented and ask that you delay your formal rebuke so that the supervisor and the play department can conduct more community outreach. subsequently, your review has been delayed by further efforts to do community outreach.

out reach was conducted in organization is representing west portal, copper film all, north beach, castro, chinatown, they hate, and the mission. that is where we stand for you. -- 8 ashbury -- we're giving you an opportunity to review this. thank you very much. >> are there any planning issues

i should be aware of. san francisco would like new businesses to keep our city dynamic and unique. >> i would like to open in a neighborhood, what do you mean what kind of restaurant. will customers order at a counter or will a waiter come out? >> i guess they will come at the counter. >> i guess this would be at the counter. >> the planning code classifies that as a full-service restaurant. will there be disposable rappers? >> no, there will be reusable placekicker joshed place.

>> since you're using plates, you are a full-service restaurant. only with conditional use authorization which takes between four and six months to process. >> that is a long time and expensive. i don't think that i can afford the rent on an empty space for six months but if i did serve the food in disposable wrappers. >> you have to have them pick up the food from the counter. >> ok, fine. i will have a bit and serve it in disposable wrappers. >> how big is the space? 1000 square feet or less would make you a small self-service restaurant. >> 1200 square feet. >> it does not matter in this district because neither one is

permitted. you can have another location in mind. >> how about upper market? >> small self-service restaurants require conditional use authorization in the upper market neighborhood. >> can i sell coffee and bagels? >> yes, as long as they are prepackaged and not posted. >> as long as i don't put them in a sandwich press? >> yes, we would have to send someone to confiscate your toaster. >> can i serve ice-cream? >> only if it is served in a cup and not a tone. otherwise, we would have to send in a fourth officer to take your

eyes cream cones. >> are there any other rules? >> you can not contain more than 15 seats with more than 400 square feet devoted to seeding. it must have a limited menu of beverages. >> and thank you. this has been very informative. perhaps i should keep my job. >> you are quite welcome. i'm glad i could help.

>> this shows the current situation and the referent definitions are confusing and they don't make sense. this might seem absurd, many potential small business owners have had conversations with the planners. to go back to the reasons we started this, we started on this endeavor because of legislation introduced by supervisor mirkarimi. there is a report which recommended revising these definitions and received a lot of comments and letters from community groups that would like to revise their red strut -- the

red strut definitions -- the rest got definitions -- in- line this informed neighborhood groups as well as interested parties on the legislation and proposal. the department office posted a two outreach meetings and i would like to think the supervisor for his work on this on helping us with these meetings. we contacted various neighborhood groups with gave controls about the proposed legislation and a page on the department's website where we posted the video that you just saw and the proposal. we made a presentation to the small business commission. the code has 13 eating and

drinking definitions. small self-service restaurants and others are differentiated by the number of seats. we're discussing video stores and they have their own use category. the staff recommendation is to simplify the definitions. we would like to reduce the total number in article 7 and 823. we would like to integrate conditions into the restaurant definitions so that business owners and community members know how businesses operate up front.

this would be covered under the sales and service. video stores are going out of business. there is no need to have a use definition. we would like to maintain existing controls preserving restaurant caps and restrictions based on the bars and individual districts. a bit of our methodology, we divided the different uses we have currently by the type of alcohol lessons or how alcohol was allowed to be served on site. we have the uses that does not have the alcohol on site.

the part definition was best left unchanged but consolidated into one section of the code under article 7. just another graphic explaining how that works with the alcohol use. the basis for the recommendation coming the original definitions were added in 1987. they were crated to limit the number of restaurants and preserve neighborhood serving retail.

there are new categories that could adapt to a changing market will still controlling the most useful aspect of the restaurant. the standard does conditions would be added to the new definitions. the controls would help to preserve small neighborhood character and most of those are around 2500 square feet. some go as little as 2000. since our presentation last july, we have drafted the ordinance and we took our recommendations and we put them in ordinance form. we hosted two outreach meetings and we converted existing restaurant controls to fit with

new definitions including controls in the valley, north beach, west portal, to name a few. we are finding the proposed eating and drinking definitions and we have the revised chinatown controls. today, we are asking you to make action on this item. you can recommend for approval the original legislation, you can recommend approval of the legislation with the modifications that staff is requesting, or you can not recommend any changes and maintain the current controls as they are. i do have one small change to the legislation and this is very minor.

with that, my presentation is complete. >> i would like to open it up for public comment. >> good afternoon. i'm the director of the office of small business. i would like to thank supervisor mirkarimi for his additional legislation and your legislation to open up and examining the complex definitions a round restaurants and giving direction and guidance to your staff. i would like to thank them for

the work they have done. the commission met on monday, july 11th and following the presentation, the commission voted 6-0 to recommend adding to you to approve the restaurant consolidation and simplification as drafted. as i noted the commission previously heard supervisor mirkarimi's proposal. there has been an additional outreach about the proposed changes and we have noticed in our bulletin and in july we made it a headline banner island -- banner item. this was the highest highest sef our bulletin.

i wanted to highlight that as well. in reference to my letter i submitted to you on behalf of the commission, the restaurant the zoning regulations, as noted by the video, are difficult and cumbersome for san francisco's small businesses. as in that video and your staff to deal with new business owners on a day-to-day basis, so do our individuals in our offices, our business assistance, and we have those conversations on a daily basis with individuals. the office of small business, we have clients that come in with exciting and innovative business models that frequently do not easily fit into these singles zoning categories or we have entrepreneur is taking over an existing restaurant, only to find that their concept is not permitted and they have often discover this after signing a lease. as noted in my letter, simply

stated, the current code is over complex, discourages compliance, and cannot prevent businesses from reaching their prodigious. since two dozen men, the small business commission has supported the implementation of many of these regulations. our offices work with supervisor mirkarimi and your staff on creating a limited life performance permits. the small business commission agrees that the findings are the cornerstone recommendation of number three, pertaining to overhauling the regulations for eating and drinking uses. small business commission finds that planning staff's proposal before you today is consistent with these recommendations, and we strongly recommend that the planning commission and the board of supervisors enact these changes without delay. in making these recommendations, we note that simplification will not lead to degradation of policies and the zoning

districts with special control. and with west parole, hastert, north beach, and others. and we will continue to have special regulations put in place to meet the needs of other neighborhoods. while this is not in the recommendations before you, i would like to suggest that as part of your conversation, for the commission to consider discussing the topic of requiring conditional use for bonafide restaurants that want to have a tight 47 license, currently as proposed, that will still require a conditional use. with that, i do want to encourage you to recommend today adding these regulations to supervisor mirkarimi's current piece of legislation. thank you. thank you. thank you for being here and sharing those thoughts with us. now we will open it up for public comment. peter, robbed, tom, and victor.

>> good afternoon. yes repeaters. i want to set way from comments made earlier about notification. i want to talk about the process side of this. i did discuss the substance of k and the surface level seems flexible code consolidation. but, you know, that keep video that was done earlier, if you replace all of the content with the notification process about how many -- what is there, 25 notification standards for every conceivable types of projects considered. are you a tenant, an occupant, a homeowner? is it 311, 312? 20 day notification, 30 day notification? it is baffling. if you put a committeeperson in a position, it is no different. no less frustrating and an fiore rating, frankly. so the chuckle we saw compels

us to see how we can fix and simplify those season -- and those. i know the department has an agenda of major legislative efforts, some proposed by the department, proposed by various members of the board of supervisors. i am confused why universal plan a vacation or something along those lines is not also part of the major legislative agenda for this department right now. it is the soft tissue that makes your job, commissioners, either very difficult or a little bit easier. on this legislation and others like it on the agenda that the department has, i am concerned that because these are unusual, this is not an application by a sponsor that already has various triggers for how folks get involved. there are no standards for knowledge is that the proposals are vetting with the general

public or standing bodies. i am is part of the community advisory committee, or whether i am and never the person off the street. there no standards, protocols, or procedures for how legislative proposal actually get vetted. it is essentially made up on the fly. i appreciate supervisor mirkarimi's office taking the extra time to reach out to folks and have the various meetings. but that does not make for a standard. we have the any legislation coming down the pike in articles 10 and 11. i it begs the question of, how can we set some standards that are consistent? [bell rings] and how our major neighborhood associations engaged? how are actually affected communities engaged? rather than making it up each time. again, not blaming. but i think it is a gaffe in our institutional standards. as a matter of policy, i would suggest the commission said it expectations for the department

that anything that comes before you should have gone through certain kind of checklists or vetting processes for the level of consistency. thank you. >> get afternoon. my name is rob, executive director for the golden gate restaurant association. it is my pleasure to be here today to discuss with you this piece of legislation. i want to thank supervisor mirkarimi and his office. rob, in particular, for the work they have done. as well as your staff. the analogy i would use to how i think a lot of restaurant workers and small entrepreneurs in the city look at the planning code sometimes it it -- is that it is lacking. we still do all the law and teach our legal clauses in latin. in those people who knew it much more powerful than the rest of the people. really, that is how the planning code is now as we get into some

of these very confusing process is about what is allowed and what is not allowed. it empowers the very few people who really understand the code. but the general population is very much disempowered. i think what this legislation does is it takes a very common- sense approach to simplify that, so that people can understand what they're getting into, what sort of investments they're getting into, what their liability is when they're trying to start a business and create jobs in the city. i think the planning department has gone a long way to try to move that down the pack in a very productive way. i do not think -- and i think it was reiterated by adam that it undermines protections. we have put a lot of protections over the last decade in place regarding our neighborhoods, protecting the quality and types of businesses that go into those neighborhoods through conditional use, through a formula retail. so a lot of the arcane parts,

the really difficult to latin parts, are not necessary anymore because we have other protections that are much more easy to see on the service. so i do think this creates a nice clean up. i also think that in the process since, this has meant something that the city has done its due diligence. i believe this is the third time before this body. it was before the small business commission did you have your staff with protocols about how the reach out to neighborhood groups on the sorts of issues, through e-mail and notification that people have signed up for. there has been significant outreach, and it is not done. it now needs to go through the board of supervisors and have the opportunity to go to the land use committee and the full board. that is the legislative process. [bell rings] that is how we all work. we ask that you take and support this common-sense legislation that cleans up and simplifies

the code to move it forward so it is easier to create jobs and start businesses in san francisco and approved our neighborhood and improve the quality of life. thank you very much. president olague: thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. tom, executive director of livable city. we worked with supervisor mirkarimi on the original legislation here, and the impetus for this actually kind of came from your staff. i was at a small restaurant, and two planning department staff recognize me and they said, we want to take you for a drink. and they did. they said we started with the planning department because we wanted to serve the public. we wanted to have good, rational planning in the city that benefited the public. but what we see too often is this web of regulation that really tortures' these little businesses. it is impossible to really

understand if you are complying or not with which one of the 13 definitions and so on. the big guys have their armies of lawyers. they figure it out or they have their own impulse. but i think it is the small businesses, the little folks, here, this web of rules when the toyota does not make sense. the conversation got me thinking about how we would do this, and so we looked at the nc-1 districts in the inner sunset. you tell them to be bolder and look bigger, and they have done so. they crafted a smart piece of legislation. i think it gets to the major concerns that they have done a lot of outreach without a lot of additional budget. they have definitely stretched themselves to talk to all the concern groups. i do not think we are entirely done it other some neighborhoods, especially in the mixed use districts, that we

will need to work with. we have to carve sections of for the full board and hopefully get this done. but they have done a tremendous job, as has director mirkarimi's staff. this was not their original intent to take a song, but they have talked to everybody from many neighborhoods, mostly outside of district 5. but i think we have a good workable framework that is solid. with these definitions, you will know that you can apply. i like the extensions of the good neighbor policies, the ones that were in article 8, bringing them into article 7, so restaurants are good neighbors. and it is clear what to do with trash and minorities. their standard conditions of approval. the nc districts helps level the playing field. [bell rings] i think you have a chance to liberate the entrepreneurs in the city. there are tax breaks and things like that. there will be something down the road. here is that chance, do

something for the little folks who wanted to start a business but we should nurture that. we are incredibly creative cities around food. we pride our unique neighborhood identities and what the ability of our neighborhoods. this legislation advances all of those goals. we urge you to move it forward unanimously to the board of supervisors with recommendations. thank you. president olague: thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is victor. i have been a small business lawyer here in san francisco now for 21 years. i want to congratulate sheriff mirkarimi, supervisor mirkarimi, and his staff, and also the planning staff of the planning commission, your department, for providing leadership and support to the small business community, which as we know, is the backbone of our neighborhoods. i have had the privilege and

honor of representing many immigrant small business owners, ranging from all over latin america, from the middle east, from eastern europe, from japan, from china, thailand, and various other communities. i can assure you that for many of these small businesses to come here, that is part of their success. not only as individuals but for their family. and they do make of the character, the great character that san francisco is so famous for throughout the world. i have reviewed this legislation carefully. huge kudos to everyone that has been involved. i urge you to pass it unanimously if you could. thank you. president olague: thank you. >> cindy. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i am the interim deputy director

at the chinatown cd. c i want to talk about a number of issues. the first is outreach. we heard about this project when it came from mirkarimi is office the second time, so in october. we worked hard to get up to speed on it. ann marie and aaron did come to our office, and i want to thank them for that. but we talked about need. we mentioned in the powerpoint that we give the recommendations but since then, we have been thinking about outreach we can do. we had not reached to merging groups in the neighborhood, to small businesses, property owners, that have not had the time for it to come back to us. but then again, started thinking more about what the problem is. we solve the problem statement in the video that was created. but is that true for chinatown? chinatown has seen incredible vitality through the really tough economic time recently. the vacancy rate, i believe,