president hwang: will come back to the july 25 meeting of the board of appeals. we are calling item 6a and 6b which will be held together. north waterfront restaurant group purses the department of public works. various addresses, including 250

fourth street and broadway along davis and the front. protesting the issuance of a mobile food facility permit for the sale of everything except hot dogs. and also protesting the issuance on march 8, 2012, two of the grid services number 12 mff- 0035. we will start with the appellant. >> i need to be recused from this item. my employer has a lease with off the grid. president hwang: my apologies. we would need to have a motion and a vote. >> i move to reduce due to the conflict.

president hwang: is there any public comment? seeing none. vice president fung: aye. commissioner hurtado: aye. commissioner lazarus: aye. >> the vote is 4-0. commissioner hillises' recused. president hwang: we will start with the appellant. because there are to bring appeals, you will have 14 minutes -- two appeals, you have 14 minutes. >> my name is pete ryan. thank you for your time this evening. we are here tonight because you granted our request for

jurisdiction when there was a mistake and we did not get notice of the permit and therefore we are here as though we got notice. we think that in addition to the initial mistake, we are going to be asking that you revoke it this evening. there is no dispute that it is within the 300 foot radius and off the grid takes the position that it is considered by agreeing not to serve hamburgers but they are permitted to sell hamburgers. those permits should not be granted because it is an identical food and it is within

300 feet. the fact they asked you to truck them, they will be good citizens. it is irrelevant. the permit should not be granted to that basis. however, as you know, among the 35 food trucks connected to these permits, there is direct menu competition as well. they are listed in our brief and i will repeat them here. it primarily serves salads and sandwiches during the lunch hour. this is not a residential area. this is a commercial area off the grid is open 14 hours a day while they are there for five days, three days a week. five hours, three days a week during the lunch hour is a majority of the time that it is open and serving food.

they do not serve dinner. although they are open after 5:00, it is a bar and they do not serve food during that time. it is disingenuous to say because we are open 14 hours, there is no competition. the primary competition is a during lunch when the people are there and they come to lunch in that area. among the 35 food trucks that have permits, we will talk about this, we do not think that the metal of g -- methodology is what the statute intended or comprehended at the time it was passed by the board of supervisors. off the grid is not a food purveyor. they are not chefs, they are not a kitchen, they are a permit expediter that coaches business from established neighborhoods. you will notice that not only do we represent grumpy's, we have

the support of eight other restaurants who are contributing to this effort to tonight and ask yourself, why are they doing it? it is simple. they are part of the community. they compete with one another. they are being unfairly competed with off the greek -- grid. the food is great but that is not the point. the point is there is an established community that has been serving the people in the offices for years. we do not think -- this is not one food truck that serves a particular kind of food that does not compete with grumpy's. this is a concerted effort. they come in, they try to find a

place, and they initially succeeded because they got dpw to calculate that 300 feet. when we caught that and found out grumpy's was within the jurisdiction, back to the competition, which -- >> did -- dpw appears to put the most focus on, at the menu issues. of the 35 trucks, many of them serve food that is similar to grumpy's. one serves chicken sandwiches. 510 burger serves burgers and sodas grumpy's. -- so does grumpy's. they have the ability to do it under this permit and the

permits should be revoked for that reason. now, i want to return to the code itself and look at some of the standards that dpw utilizes in determining whether to grant the permit. we talked about this in other cases. the very first one is whether the applicants' proposed application is a wood -- is within 300 feet. i would urge you to consider that does not mean that if a business is located 301 feet away from a food trucks, and that means the permit should be granted. that is not what it says and that is not what it means. again, we are not just grumpy's.

right around the corner are many other of our restaurants who are listed in our brief that sells challenges, ethnic foods, just the same type that off the grid does. we have been before -- been here before on this issue. 301 feet, it is no different than 300. where do you end it? here you have a community of restaurants that compete with one another whose businesses and customers are being poached three days a week during the lunch hour. whether it is 300 feet or 350, we know that the neighborhood is a neighborhood, and it is primarily a commercial neighborhood, the business there is primarily lunch, and off the grid is there three days a week during the lunch hour and they

are taking a lot of business. the other factors you can consider, basically it is the last one, any other information relevant to whether the proposed locations is appropriate, that is a catchall for you. any other information, and it is not district 300 feet. if you are outside 300 feet, you are out. that is not what it says. let's consider all of the relevant information that gives you the discretion to consider our client's plight by the strikes. we would urge you to let go of this arbitrary -- it is not arbitrary. the reason the 300 feet is there is because we need a standard on who gets noticed. i think it is appropriate because dpw needs to know who gets the notice.

beyond that, this statute does not saying that because you aren't 301 feet -- are 301 feet, you are out of luck. i want to show you something that their brief merits discussion. currently they operate 18 markets. this is not a weekly market. a weekly market would be a situation that is appropriate for what they do. that is not this. our clients have been in business for years. they employ a lot of people in the community. they pay taxes. they cannot get up and move their business around where the customers are. they sign leases and it is not fair that these trucks can come in at a time when they need this

business to survive. a lot of these restaurants are suffering as a direct result of this competition. the other thing off the grid says, and this is important, they have been successful in "activating underutilized spaces in urban cores." the waterfront is hardly underutilized. there are eight restaurants. it is not underutilized. those restaurants are there and have been there and they are there because there is business there. it is not underutilized. i will let you draw your own conclusion about what you think about that statement. the other issue, off the great tries to -- grid tireries to say

grumpy's sales -- sells alcohol and they do not. most people do not drink alcohol at lunch. even their own brief says its. they serve alcohol at happy hour. happy hour starts at 5:00. after work is over. the food trucks are not even there at 5:00. we agreed they are not competing with grumpy's alcohol business. the fact they do not serve dhaka hall at lunch is irrelevant -- alcohol at lunch is irrelevant. they are serving burgers to people who work and go back to their offices.

in closing, i would ask you to take a high level look at the intent of the statute and recognize that off the grid is not, the way they are doing this is not what was intended. they are not food operators and they are not chefs. they are a company designed to go in and take business, poach is the appropriate word. here the permit itself is flawed. dpw may agree with this when we have this chance to look at it. grumpy's has identical food to many of the same operators that off the grid services. we would ask you revoke the

permit. lastly, and i still do not have my head around this long, why are there -- this one, why are there two trucks? it makes things twice as bad? -- as bad.

>> are for the delay. i run off the grid. i am going to do a power point and i will not take the full 14 minutes. i appreciate your patience while i get it started. president hwang: you can use the microphone that is closer to the display if it is easier for you. >> thank you. i have a hard copy of this presentation, if there is a

preference to view it on paper or on the screen. i run off the grade -- grid. we organized logistics' for 18 weekly markets a. we are a san francisco-based company. as you can see on the screen, really what we do is more than morep -- simply poach areas. we work with vendors to see that they have their proper documents, that they are operating properly and also really what we look to do is provide an experience that provides more diversity to an area and more options to consumers. some demographics about our vendors, 38% of them are women

owned. 55% are minorities. 61% are first-time business owners. we work with 150 vendors a week. all of that has started in the last two years. by its nature, street food is an -- is defined by a narrow product and those things tend to work well with local produce. really what we are talking about are two separate permits. one permit is for a single truck. the other is for multiple tracks. in the guidelines of the permit that was issued and approved by the board of supervisors was a mechanism for locating multiple trucks under a single permit. we originally applied when the mobile food system -- facility was brand new and we camped out for three days in the cold.

we had no idea that dpw had not issued any guidelines and we did not know the property was not an acceptable location. we did our research, we paid for proper notice to be done to the proper locations. after three days of waiting in the cold and the rain, when we got up to the table, we discover that morning that the first location, which is isolated here, was not going to be acceptable. dpw moved us to the middle of the adjacent block in did not require us to give notice, which is part of the reason why we find ourselves here today. we do not want to surprise anybody. i will tell you how we decided to go out and why we are surprised to be here now. >> may i have a copy of