francisco, paying these gentlemen as some corporate entity is a misnomer and i ask for your support to making a decision for the future of san francisco by approving the application of pet express. i was on the phone with a friend of mine, i told him about this process and formula retail and he said, really. >> thank you very much. >> hello, my name is j. . the collins, i'm in support of the pet food express and i wanted to say i have been a shop owner, i shopped two doors down of the proposed location and wanted to say that with the businesses that has been happening inside of the lombard street corridor, it's disheartening to try to run a business there, i have noticed there's been less foot traffic

than ever before, i feel a good shop would bring good traffic, a good retail shop would bring more people along the corridor for better business. i want to say we need more quality shops there on lombard street, particularly on this west end of the corridor and i think pet food express is going to bring that quality. thank you. >> come on up, let me call a few more names. (calling speaker names). >> good afternoon, commissioners, my name is charles vain, i own judy's cafe on chest nut street for the last 31 year, i'm also the vice-president for the lombard

business merchant's association. the lombard business merchant's association has been opened up, has been trying to help clean up this street, trying to help deal with 2 vacancies and the thing that is are taking place with miscellaneous crimes and thing that is are on the street. things are starting to move in a positive direction. there's a condo project that's coming across from pet food express which i think is a big positive for the street. i support pet food exprez to come in as to clean up this area and to take over the parking lot and the building, and i hope for your support too. in this last several months that has been going on, i'm not trying to pinpoint things or put judgment on people but i don't understand why we can't join together as community and hear the truth. i see a lot of misconduct taking place and i don't find it in my own heart that it's

justifiable as able as a human being or a business owner, i'm asking for everybody to hear the truth and analyze it in the part that we can step forward because my real belief is when we talk about the i, myself as my ego, but the we is for the community. thank you for your help and support. >> good afternoon, planning commissioners, i'm the director of community outreach for pet food express, it is my job to put together the community programs, work with groups such as rescue, pet canine teams and other, i am a founder of german shepperd rescue, so i've known martin and mark for a long time before i came to work with them. they plan to have somebody in

charge of this department who knew the rescue community and put what we had available to where the greatest need was, not where the greatest support is, where the greatest need was, taking a rescue lake, building six cat adoption centers that have saved 37 cats and kittens, a police canine officer getting help for his jobs, and i can quote you a lot of numbers, the support is widespread, it's sincere, we're not the only pet supply company that do it, i would like to commend them for doing so too, the animals in need don't care how many stores you have, they want you to care and pet store exprez -- express has for a long time. >> i would like to remind

members of the public or the project team that you were provided your 15 minutes and we wouldn't expect that additional speakers on the project team come up and speak again. >> next speaker please who i had called. >> my name is cindy alenjer and i oppose the project, and i love san francisco, i was born and raised here and i love all the unique stores, and the beautiful area of the marina and i'd like it to say *f stay that way, not with big corporations and just i love the small stores, so i would like it to keep that way. thank you so much. >> hi, my name is louise tully and i'm vice-president of the police and working canine foundation, we're here to speak

out in support of the pet food express lombard location as well as pet food express as a partner with our non-profit. we're an all volunteer non-profit organization that provides essential safety equipment and training for law enforcement canine teams, everyone from very small tourn towns here in california to big cities like san francisco. without the help from pet food express, our small organization could not have accomplished what we have to date, over the last five years, they have donated close to 500 thousand to help our canine teams with bullet proof vests, donations that help us host more than 400 canine officers to attend our canine emergency medicine class as well as to receive trauma kits at no charge. we also install heat sensors in patrol cars that keep the dogs safe. for us as a non-profit, we find

it really cynical that some of the people have made comments about pet food express's intentions, working with them, we have to be sensitive because we work with law enforcement agencies and we have to be sensitive of who we're working with and what they expect in return, they have been extremely flexible and supportive without being overbearing as a sponsor. we value our partnership with pet food express and hope this is a model for other companies to contribute to the community while doing good and doing well in business. many of these other small pet food stores have continued to expand like animal connection and bow wow meow into the peninsula and we hope all of them can do well and also do good. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioner, my name is michael, i'm speaking in

support of the project, and it seems like pet food express has been great to the community, they'll be a great addition to the lombard location instead of having another bar open. i love their idea of pet adoption because every little cit ser alive, every little critter that they save is another life saved so the sooner we open this store, the sooner we're going to be saving lives. please support this idea and support this project and thank you very much, commissioners. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, i'm aliam mor month and i'm a low cant merchant on philmore street and i am in support of pet express

coming in mainly because of the lombard street and how it looks right now, small business owners that are a little bit afraid of losing some business and that comes with card work, i'm a small business owner, have been for 27 years, and i just learned that the best way to fight this is to really get out there and work hard, but the main thing that we have to concern ourselves with right now is the way lombard street looks, and the elements that we have on lombard street because of all the vacancy that is are there and i think whether it's a big box or small box, we need to fill that street out, it's an embarrassment for our tourists to come into town and see that to represent san francisco, so i am in support of pet food express and i hope that the other small businesses around will just work a little bit harder and work with pet food express and make this a

successful street like it can be and like it should be. it should be a beautiful part of the marina and not an eye sore like it is right now and this does filter up to philmore street and up to union street as well, so i'm very much in support of this so we can get on with development and there's really nothing better than development in any beautiful city like san francisco. thank you. >> thank you. >> maybe i can ask the line to come up a little bit so we can keep it rolling. i'll call some more names. (calling speaker names). >> go ahead, ma'am. >> hi, my name is patricia wave

and i've lived in san francisco for 30 years. i don't believe that pet food express is a good fit for the marina district. we already have enough mom and pop stores to take care of our needs as we did four years ago. san francisco is a world class tourist destination and when they visit our beautiful city, they want to shop in a unique, eclectic stores with merchandise that's fitting. i just feel that any shop that would pay rent on a blighted store for four years and kind of hide behind that, i'm not aware of politics or anything as far as an activist, but when i heard that, i just -- they could have used that money, i do not know how much the rent is per month, but four years, that money could have been well spent in other ways such as their adoption and such as

their helping out the community. i never heard anything in all the years of them renting this as being a benefit to the marina district and this really upsets me. thank you for allowing me to speak. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. my name is sharon hefsky and i have lived in the marina for 36 year, i am in support of my neighborhood small pet stores whose expert and personalized service i have enjoyed and which i find invaluable, and so i'm here to see that they are afforded protection. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioner, michael william

s, 40 year resident, i have a fair amount of experience now in doing assessments on things like the relationships of formula retail use. two small business in close proximity, i just finished 400 hours on lombard street and i conducted 234 discussions with business and property owners and as some of you know, i do that very well, it takes me a long time. along with that, i did 13 hours of traffic studies on lombard and i found 2600 cars per hour plus going by every hour and i went down to chest nut or to webster and buchanan and the other side streets out there all the way to divisadero and see how many cars went in there and turned left on chest nut, none, 2%, 3% maybe maximum.

now, back in june of last year, in june, 2012, i set out on my own without compensation on my own to explore the lombard corridor and find out what i could about the problems that it had, do some findings and get my own assessments from a sampling of about 17 bids owners, that ended up 234 and 400 hours by the time i got done, what i discovered is that the relationship of the formula retail use and the union street mcd were appropriate and balanced, that the relationship of formula retail use to small business in small proximity were also balanced, but there was no evidence, i found no evidence whatsoever that the economic relationship of the chest nut n c-2 and the lombard corridor had any relationship at all. >> thank you.

>> good evening, commissioners, my name is carol miller and i'm a san francisco resident and a former marina resident, for many years, i've seen many neighborhoods erode as retail has moved in, if more chains like pet food express are allowed to move in, the appeal of shopping in the marina would diminish markedly for me, i would be disappointed if pet food express were to come in one block away and squeeze these stores out of business, please keep the diversity on chest nut street and protect the business thaz are integral to the marina, please deny the permit for the pet food express lombard location, and i did just also want to note that these stores on chest nut and

i'm not sure, i'm not familiar with the union street store, they have always provided this high quality premium food that pet food express espouses to being the only ones who carry, that's how i heard it. anyway, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> h i my name's allen mccarthy and i'm against pet food express coming in because you will lose small stores. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, my name is boris raymond, san francisco resident. while the opening of pet food express, i would like to focus on pfe has been renting lot 14 for more than three years, i don't know the exact figures, i can't imagine the amount being other than astronomical, why is this company could vetting a piece of land that they have already been denied abing says

to, they have a store open one mile away, the answer is simple, advertising, the appeal of having a store off the 101 is evidence, it would be the best kind of advertising other than a play during the super bowl, they're a company that is in the business of business, not contributing to the communities. why are they paying inordinate sums for an empty lot when the money could be further funding other businesses and non-profits, their desire to open the store specifically on lombard is why they shouldn't be allowed to have one, their goal is purely a strategic plat to market their brand, it would not be not hurtful to existing businesses, all their services are already available, and by the pet food express one mile away in california.

this project is first and foremost about expand ago brand and should be self-evident that the unbending desire to open the store is a cause for suspicion and i urge you to deny the permit for doing so. thank you. >> good afternoon. my name's trisha principay, if pet food express is allowed to continue the expansion of their empire in san francisco, we independent store owners whose livelihoods are therefore jeopardized and who live and work here in the city and spend our income in the city will not be able to compete with the pet food express big box store buying power, and if we go under, there will no longer be a choice of where san

franciscans and its visitors can shop for pet food and supplies, small stores make our city unique and special. we're not a city of strip malls, at least not yet, please don't jeopardize our livelihoods as independent store owners, we work hard to build our business and maintain our businesses. we love our stores and the people and cats that we serve, please deny the permit to pet food express. thank you. >> thank you. >> as the next speaker comes up, i'll call more names. (calling speaker names). >> my name is lisa erikson and i've lived in the neighborhood for 29 years and i wanted to speak up in favor of the character of the community and the neighborhood and oppose the project. i think the character of our neighborhood enhances all the neighborhoods and the city

itself and i also do note for customers who prefer the pricing that pet food express can offer can go 12 box, park and get whatever they need. >> thank you. >> hi, my name's tony and i'm an owner at [inaudible] pet store and i want to read a letter, dear planning commission, we would like to add our voice in opposition to the pet food express application, we note the following, this is not an underserved area for pet supplies, it's not even an underserved area for pet food express which has a location with a parking lot 15 blocks away, pet food express is in the tradition of many chain operations, their research shows it is cheaper to open in a well served commercial area and approach customers from existing businesses than to locate in an unserved

neighborhood and build customer base from skafp, there are 9 existing pet store business nz the area, pet food express will have an immediate negative impact on those retailers, sales will cause job losses and store closings, we would argue that this is a bad deal for that neighborhood, it will be felt largely by [inaudible] studies done in san francisco and across the country consistently show that in independent businesses reinvest in their local community at 2.5 to three times the rate of chains, this is not just trading one pet store for another, it's hurting merchants whose contribution tos the contribute, economic and culture have greater than pet food express will ever be,

thank you for your consideration, heart lan don, thank you. >> thank you. >> hello, my name is brenda baxter, i live on lombard street about a block away from this proposed location and i don't own any businesses and i'm not a member of any association, i just consider myself lombard street my home and i consider that my community and we dealt with this four years ago and we as a community said that we didn't want to have a pet food express at this location and as with many i neighbor, i thought this was done, i had no idea for all these years, pet food express left this building vacant and has contributed to the blight in my neighborhood, while they've been doing this, i have in my neighborhood a pet food express that's five minutes away from where i live and that i can go to and that i can shop on a regular basis, i think it's obvious that they're not actively parts of our community and the community's already served by a pet food express.

thank you so much. >> thank you. >> my name is lynette cast loamy, i work at lombard pet hospital for 12 years, i would like to read a portion of mr. lynch's letter for the planning commission. dear commissioners, for the past 50 years, i have been the owner of lombard pet hospital which is located one blood from this proposed project, i voice my opposition strongly in 2009 and i'm disappointed that in such a short time, this large corporation has left this location vacant for four years and is trying again after the neighborhood has spoken to strongly against the project then and now. pet food express offers at itsz location quick vaccinations in their parking elates, this is unsafe practice for all animals should be discouraged by the city of san francisco, animals

can have a serious reaction to vaccines and also important is the relationship and history a veterinarian builds with their owner and their pet, please don't reward this unsafe practice and disregard for the neighborhood. thank you. >> thank you. my name's ann gardener and i have three dogs and i have gotten them vaccinated at pet food express, it's indoor, it's not in the parking lot and they had been checked out by their vet originally. i live in pacific heights, i often go to marine county and i would like to frequent lombard street pfe on my way back into town, i already shop at the walgreens there for convenience and for the opportunity to visit the chest nut street stores, especially marina meats, i cannot afford to do the bulk of my shopping at

petite pet stores but i still go in from time to time, i was in three past stores when i was asked to sign a petition against pst, neither store had what i needed nor had the clerks heard of the product, in the most recent case, it was washable pee pads because one of my dogs lost the use of her hind leg, the manager of the california street pse, she not only gave me a discount but offered to give me a full discount, it was very challenging to have a large handicapped dog and her kindness met the world to me, i had attended the meeting about pse coming into the par rena and i had hoped for a constructive conversation about how the stores can co-exist and

i still hope for that. at that time, it was a very decisive, rude, i felt on part of the porters of the marina pet boutiques but i hope at the end of this, we can all work together and i would like to patronize everybody. thank you. >> thank you, as the next speaker comes up, i'll call more names. (calling speaker names). >> good afternoon, commissioner, my name is rainy defeld, i've been a marina resident for the last 36 year and is a merchant on lombard street, ask i live on that terrible part of lombard so i walk by the proposed site of pet food express every day, i would like to give a list of

the businesses that closed, the kelly's, the grove, 20 year, the beauty store, 20 years, smash, 17 years, sq, 15 years, chadwick of london, 10 years, cheaters eye wear, 4 years, rainwater, laundromat, approximately 20 year, splendid interiors, five years, the general store, approximately 4 years, i'm sure i've forgotten some, but i walk by those empty store fronts every day, some have left on their own or relocated, six store fronts are now vacant, five have been taken over by formula retail often taking two store fronts which happened with a formula retail coming in which took my store plus the store that was next to me for street impact, this is not progression, this is being pushed out of the shopping districts that all of

us together had shaped, small businesses already have to face retail sales deluded by online retailers, plus high cost of doing business, san francisco taxes and special thing that is we give our employees, the values that san francisco has always held made this a special place to live and work. we have always supported our small independent merchants and that is what we should do today. tourists come not only for the sights, they come for the experience and the uniqueness that we have in our stores and neighborhoods, we should not lose that character, this is not free commerce, this is unfair competition for our stores. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners, my name's lynette spaoeg l, third generation, third generation business owner, i own [inaudible] pet stores, and our

city is charming and beautiful because of all the small businesses in san francisco, and your lombard street being empty for four years is ugly, it's really ugly and i don't think they should be rewarded for keeping that space open for four years. it's ugly, it's gross, i completely oppose of them. thank you. >> good evening, my name's liz froman, i'm here to speak on behalf of pet food express, i've been involved with lab rescue for many years, pet food express has supported our organization for many years, we get two to five labs [inaudible] in many ways, pet food express has supported us over the past few years has saved us a lot of money, that

way we can help the dog's special needs, many of these older dogs get much exposure and end up being adopted in their adoption events, they will get back to us with an answer if they can help, i have always been impressed with their business model. we know they will deliver on what they will say they do for lab rescue, not only am i involved with golden gate lab rescue, but i compete with larger companies every day and i have been very successful for 16 year, there is room for all of us, i am a believer that everybody has to do part in their community with the business they live in. keeping this model in mind, the chest nut district/the city would be making the wrong decision to not allow pet food express to move into the lombard location, they would be not only turning away an asset to the rescue community but the