violated because some dispensaries are non-profit and me that is low income depend on these non-profit organizations regards to a dispensaries that makes millions of dollars. it really helps me as a veteran. i like to believe that i served my country we may and hopefully my politicians can serve me in return. thank you. >> good afternoon, my name is jerry goodman. i'm a member of access of love. i wasn't born here but i have lived here 45 years of my life. i went to balboa high which the around

the corner from where they want to put up the dispensary. by me knowing that area pretty good, there is an alcohol store at least 3 houses in between each one going down all the way down mission street. so, whereas when i was a kid, all did you was go in there and just at the age of 18 and 17 you can go and buy alcohol without your id. now we are putting up dispensaries where we have security guards at these dispensaries which would help alleviate some of the madness in these areas. by all rights the addition doesn't add up. why would you want to make a

place that could be safer worse off by putting some cyber cafes where people are gambling. can't you see it? i see it clearly, thank you. >> hello, my name is kenneth leman. i'm here to talk about how medical marijuana has kept me alive for 4 years and to have our dispensaries close down and have to go to other areas which is far way for some of us who have to use wheelchairs and can't get around. it not right. we need more dispensaries. 500 feet is too far to keep the dispensaries apart. i would like to say no on restrictive use.

>> good afternoon commissioners. i have with the improvement association. our border is right where two of the mcd's were approved. i think we are unique because we did not vote to fight having mcd's in our neighborhood. we voted to try to get along with them. one of the reasons this density rule is on this legislation is because my association listened to you last year when you asked for this kind of a tool and we went to the supervisor and we've been pushing for it. however we are not asking for 500 feet. we are happy with 250 feet because we would like to compromise with the community and have everyone's needs served as long as it doesn't hurt others. we would like to see a compromise otherwise we support supervisor

avalos and we thank him. >> thank you for this opportunity. my name is tim bolt. i'm a member of the largest organization of doctors. we strongly oppose a 500 foot buffer in the outer mission or instituting a conditional use permit or restricting safe access at all in san francisco, the birthplace of medical dispensaries. if the planning commission places additional restrictions the establishment of mcd's in one district, they should look at opening up space at others. if mr. avalos wants to prevent clustering, then the

board should consider opening up more space throughout the city as well. this action is reactionary. the worry of residents not used to have been cannabis dispensaries in their neighborhoods is natural, but the reality is different than their fears. research conducted by ucla concludes that regulated dispensaries reduce crime and increase public safety. on top of that, access is recovering from a federal crack down last year where eight of our dispensaries are closed. we don't need to restrict these anymore. thank you. >> my name is steven crane and i'm a disabled person living in san francisco. i'm really appalled at what i heard before

about avalos saying this is criminal. i think it's disastrous. if he wants to do that, he should go to the police department for gambling and not clustering mcd's. this is not the first time this thing has been run by here. i think it's voted down the last time. i don't think that this is necessary. i think it's a real big waste of your time. i think there is a lot better things we can be doing with our times instead of talking about 250 feet. the lady who said a block or two is not far enough. i'm handicapped, but a block is more than i can make it. i saw you whisk away real fast. i don't. keep that in mind. each person has their own individual reasons why they need these

things. i'm one of them and i'm here to tell you. thank you very much. >> are you ready? come on up. >> mel flores, charles, jonathan drier, frank, there you go. you are here. penny graham, alex, michael gold mar and steven curry. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is karen, a cannabis user. i also helped write article 3 for the passage. the fact is and i

think it was poisoned -- pointed out. it requires that new mcd's obtain a land use permit and undergo a hearing before this commission. it requires they are off limits to medical dispensaries. if these dispensaries get out of line there is a way to deal with them. and they will be dealt with. but this action is unnecessary because the san francisco weekly resorts when they recently asked for recent problems of the dispensaries. a grand total of 11 complaints had been issued against dispensaries in a five year period. there is more complaints in a fast food express in one month than all the cannabis dispensaries in a

five year period. these could not be verified by the department of health. it's premature of the three dispensaries that this department approved, only one is in business. much of the traffic is going to dissipate once the facility is opened. as far as the discretional review goes, which was allow the committee to speak on the discretional review. if we now start reversing this and planning commissions and suffer from the board, i think you are setting a very dangerous precedent for the city in the fact that we are a hub. 26 isn't enough. >> good afternoon. my name is mel flores. i'm a 25 plus year resident of the excelsior. i'm

a vice-president of the association and on behalf of that organization we have a letter that we have addressed to supervisor avalos. it says we would like to thank you to explain the legislation introduced by you. we appreciate being part of the decision making process. our membership voted unanimously to submit this letter with our views with regard to the legislation. while we understand the need and prove of the benefits, there are a few changes we feel are necessary to the proposed legislation prior to approval. we are unhappy with the proposed changes to the current requirement of the planning code regarding off street parking. specifically this section amending the planning

code for commercial use is not required. we feel the wording should be stricken with the legislation and the current parking requirements be maintained. our primary concern is for the conservation of the neighborhoods character and recognition of conservation of this character is consistent with section 101.1 and is a stated priority of the master plan. the neighborhood is not adequate to prevent transit by over crowding by munis. as you are aware the e dia has been active to reducing parking problems and we have a park the summit attended by neighbors. additionally the legislation states the district is moving.

>> is it not three minutes? it's 2 minutes. >> if you have any notes that you are welcome to submit, you are welcome to do that. thank you very much. all right. good afternoon. my name is jonathan dire. i'm a proud member of access of love. i have been a member of access of love for 2 years. i'm in opposition of this proposal. first i have a lot of respect for all of our politicians. but what we have here unfortunately a lot of times in politics, you basically have a failure of use of the existing laws. the people here that were may believe part of it before you, they put a lot of time in making up these rules and regulations and people come up here and they have this and this, but there are already

rules and obligation for that. you have an obligation to use these rules. i have been a member of access for a number of years and i have been to a lot of hearings about mcd's and we need statistical facts and all the -- statistical facts have been in favor of this. i have not heard anything to the contrary of this. all mcd's have been a great thing for the communities. they help the community and they are just really good to have around. that's all i have got to say. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, i hope you are all having a great day today. supporting the american's for safe access. i

oppose this because it's not a sense bell approach to make society better. dispensaries contribute to the california's economy. i would like to repeat what one member said, the residents not used to having the medical dispensaries is natural. they make wonderful neighbors because they reduce crime and increase public safety. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you so much. i feel the love here. i'm frank mallanero. i have seen a beer

garden come up across the street from a playground. toddlers are being exposed to this. nobody gives a care. i started working at a healer in the aids community. not like in the movies. people don't just die and take a breath. it's a long arduous painful death. i was at the hospital last week and a man dying from tobacco use. i was in insult when this supervisor prepared the cannabis. i'm sick to my stomach of what i have heard. that just i quit drinking. my liver is tumor free. i have to

be outlawed. i have worked with -- it's controllable. cannabis, the pharmaceutical is against this. i mean too many people have died in my arms. at least 60 since 1982 since i started dealing healing work. people can't eat. they can't get the food down their throat without the cannabis. the pharmaceutical companies are running death mills. this is a death mill. cannabis brings hope to the community. please, for the love of god do the right thing. i want to see as many as starbucks. because they are good. they are healing. i want to see, i get emotional here because people are dying. to hand their colleagues compared to a chinese take out.

just spit on me. it's easier. i'm emotional. i'm italian. god bless you all. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon commissioners. i just want to say i oppose the 500 foot buffer. i mirror the sentiments of the movement. really what i want to say is we want to be involved in the processhicity. contributing to society in one way or another. we just want to be part of the process. the medical cannabis task force was expanded and somebody had proposed leveling 215 and there is something going on with ad

473. it's like we have no say in all of this. we are standing on the side lines like what happened. the whole 500 feet is to break us for the corporate to come in and give us more rules. so i'm not going to take up all your time. i just wanted to say that and say something different. thank you. >> hello, my name is michael goldman and a member of ak acts of love. we did an analysis to see the effect of some of the federal letters that were sent to landlords to show how many dispensaries were shut down over the last year. we have

been under attack. to go through a couple of these. it went from 10 to 0 and coal valley from 3 to 2. and south market from 11 to 8. as far as there is any clustering at all in the city is because of restrictions that the law and the ordinance have established and limited the number of organizations that they can establish themselves. it's very difficult to find a landlord. so to say you can be in these limited places and when you created the clustering through regulations is effectively to prohibit new dispensaries to open and effectively to have safe access and it really is an attack on the medical cannabis

patients and the medical community. thank you. i'm just alex. i'm from georgia, disabled. the restricted zoning seems to be very inconsistent with the city's status as a sanctuary city. it limits competition which is already hurting from the federal intervention. for people to say that dispensaries cause any sort of public safety issues, it would just take walking and looking out to see that they have personnel during business hours. there is constant video surveillance and they are providing medicine which people in the city needs . i think less restrictions would be more

appropriate. good afternoon commissioners, my name is steven courier. when i was president of the association several years ago, the planning department wanted to push the mission street corridor which went from daily city to the embarcadero. when i drove it, it was 20.2 miles. basically what avalos wants to do is the same thing. it pushed these either side to london street would go to those places that had illegal units and made them legal and restrict parking and make it a solely transit corridor. we opposed this very hard and of course the planning commission voted against it. it

went no where. so i see that this as a same thing in the outer mission. secondly, i do have to comment about the enc. i just got back from boston and my issue is that we wanted more than a 500 feet. we wanted a thousand feet. i think it's a fear of this piece of legislation. but one of the mcd's that you approved last year that is the one that is open is mission organics have been called by police two times and there were two meetings because the neighbors behind which runs parallel to mission have been called. they are being watched very closely because this is something we feared when these were passed. so i want to thank you for your consideration.

>> leonard. if anybody else wants to speak who hasn't spoken, come on up. >> good evening commission. my name is learned moerld. i'm opposed to this amendment. one of the reasons if you put more restrictions onto these places, you cause a cluster and what happens when you cause a cluster is that there is no competition. when there is no competition, there is no reason for them to keep their product up to where they should be for like us medical patients. the second thing i would like to

ask is we need dispensaries to keep them in the hands of our medical patients. don't put in restrictions where you have people that go in there and sell our medicine and they don't care who they sell it to. they don't care if the person has a license, they don't care if the person has a doctors excuse or note. they don't care and this is the one thing that i am concerned about is once you put more restrictions onto this. it just opens up more areas for people to do illegal things. thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm paul

hansen. i'm sure you have heard this before. you have heard about the green map and the restrictions and 90 percent of the city is off limits to dispensaries. population that they are talking about increasing the population in the outer mission. san francisco is this county of san francisco is the most densely populated county in the state of california. in 2006, there were 17, 800 people per square mile. the second most populace county was orange county. finding a landlord is going to have to take a risk of not get

-- getting that. they say it's one for every 60 people. you figure out how many dispensaries are needed. working with people that want to go through the hassle and risk of opening a cannabis dispensaries and working with a landlord with the ones who want to open these. how many are needed? and finding the right spot? i say they are putting further restrictions. i understand the thousand feet from the school, but putting additional regulations where there is only 10 percent of the city where it's available, is just wrong. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker,

please. >> good afternoon, my name is susan tiban. i'm the face of the patients. i'm 60 years old. many of the children's that i need where i own a house are students that i have taught. i just came from a genetic counselors. i'm working with a genetic counselors. i'm not

interested in getting high. i am interested in preventing a cancer recurrence. the medicine that i use is not available at every dispensaries. it's difficult and time consume to go make properly. i want to work with people who know what they are doing. and an appealed to your senses of justice, your morals and good sense. sometimes when new businesses come to an area for instance, a check cashing place that moved to a neighborhood recently, people were scared and didn't want it. they are great neighbors. good afternoon. i would like to thank you you for your patients and listening to

everyone who has opinions concerning this. my opinion concerning this i would like to share, in san francisco we have a lot of medical cannabis patients with needs for medical cannabis and we have a lot of limitations on where they can access it. often times we hear that there are so many in downtown or south of market. well, a lot of people don't live downtown and south of market and shouldn't be required to travel all the way across to receive their medicine. the area we are talking about limiting access in san francisco today. i can go there almost any moment of any given day and access a wide variety of illegal drugs right on the street. readily accessible. there is no limitation on that. and when i