standards but by city standards. i think when it comes to nightlife, we view it too much from a law enforcement perspective. although law enforcement is a critical stakeholder in nightlife policy, i think law enforcement is playing too dominant a role and anytime we are doing anything the first question is about law enforcement. as opposed to law enforcement plus these other four things. i think we need to take a much more balanced approach in that respect. we also need to empower our entered at -- entertainment commission to do it's job and i will hear the board tomorrow to extend live performance to dj's and creating more outdoor music

and granting and effectively manage issues when they come up and by having a more effective entertainment commission which has made great strides, we are going to be that much the better for it. i look forward to working with everyone and again thank you for having me today. [ applause ] >> thank you, supervisor wiener. well, it's that time again, where are you, cammy? by the way, audrey joseph, everyone. we just heard from two of our board of supervisors. as you

know there are 11 members but only two supervisors have played on stage in san francisco in rock bands. so your question no. the are who are the the two supervisors who have been in bands and played on stage. two supervisors out of 11. we just need their names. thanks. >> all right. next, so we invited the head of the abc here tonight. jacob apple smith but he wasn't able to make it. instead we have chrissal brek who is going to make a statement for you guys, if you have questions we are going to open it for q and a. if you have questions please feel free and c'mon up and ask them but keep them brief. >> good afternoon, everyone. and thanks for having us here.

he's not able to be here. he's in los angeles today as a special advisor to the governor. i want to thank you folks for having us here today as we plan to be part of the summit in the years to come. we truly recognize the commissions place in this community and within our state. i over see our northern california field operations. you might know mike course on who overseas the office here in sacramento. we are happy to be back on this side of the bay able to serve you folks for your licensing and permitting needs without the inconvenience of having to

-- bridge toll. maybe we are going to roll out as early as next year online license renewals. it's a slow process when you are trying to work with state government on that kind of thing because of the fact that you have to deal with contracted bidders who are going to be handling yourself, but not only yourself like a small agency that we are but some of the larger ones as well. so finding that middle ground and making those things happen is difficult but we are trying to get our business platform as we go forward. it's been kind of an interesting year for us. as many of you probably know, medicinal marijuana is the talk of the day at the state legislature.

there is a bill pending right now that would put the abc correctly in the crossroads if you will of the effort calling on us to become the regulators of medicinal marijuana dispensaries. i can't and won't answer any opinions about that because we haven't been told how we feel about it yet. we are working very closely with the legislative leaders on it and the governor's office and the bill's sponsors and some of the stake holders to have ourselves prepared in case -- we maybe as soon as january 2014 have that task within our mission as a regulatory agency that's been doing something somewhat similar for over 60

years. we do feel confident that we will be able to get the job done as it's given to us, but it in a very early state of that and we are still working through to be prepared. one thing we will for sure and definitely want to make sure we get communicated to you folks today is that it will not impact our ability to serve you in the abc licensing or oversight role that we have. we are the alcohol and beverage control and we are funding through the abc special fund through your application and renewal fees and our role to ensure that we are not a road block to developing business in that area is something we certainly keep in the forefront of our minds.

america's cup races, we have had a couple of meetings with the stake holders in the city and promoters and pretty much everyone else that you can think is involved in that end of things and we hope to move forward and we hope to have abc permitted in place so we are not impeding the incredible time that it's going to be for this entire city and looking forward to spending a day out there and seeing what it's all about. but there are some regulatory and legislative hurdles that we have to get through because of the uniqueness of the event with the temporary location that it's going to be there for well over a hundred days. it's very unique in that aspect but we are working closely with everyone involved and we think it's going to come off well from a regulatory standpoint.

that's about all i had today in terms of abc's spot in this thing. again, we want to thank you for having us part of the summit. it's a great honor to be here. this is a really unique thing for us and that we find ourselves more commonly at odds in having to react to specific issues. we love to be here on the front end of them and be involved with issues as they are in front of us and we hope to be part of solution for everything that concerns you folks. thank you very much. [ applause ] okay. we are doing a little q and a. go ahead.

>> [inaudible] i have two different questions, as an entrepreneur, i would like to expand and buy another bar. with all of the building that's been unlocked since 2008 and everything going on around here, the market economy basis of our licensing has driven prices insane. there are no licenses and there are nothing but new properties coming seeking licenses. last year i was told that the solution was up to me as a bar owner as a citizen to try to push my

legislators to create something. how can we go about creating new licenses in order to unlock the economy on our entrepreneurial activities and as one of the entrepreneurs in the city. what's to keep me from going elsewhere, leaving san francisco. what is san francisco and the abc going to do to help keep me in the city so i can create new jobs and new businesses that are going to drive tax revenue to this city? >> a great point and great question and appreciate the opportunity to speak directly to it. as you all know, liquor licensing is a formulated thing and allowances for number of liquor license within particular communities and counties is in fact limited by

among other things but chiefly a population. we all know that san francisco's population itself is not that great in comparison to its transitory population that is here for it's entertainment, right? so it could be argued that there are not enough liquor licenses to serve not only the people that live here which is the way the legislation was created. i believe it's somewhere in the neighborhood of a full on sale liquor licenses for every 2,000 residents in the area but the hundreds of thousands of people that come from these bridges and highways and airplanes to be entertained for the wonderful food and nightlife that is here. so yes, one could argue that the formula doesn't work for something like this and there should be exceptions to it. there have in fact been legislative efforts for the

last decade for different tourist based economies to have additional liquor licenses allowed for it. napa, i believe was the last, i believe there is a pending bill for marine county for the same sponsored by legislators from those areas. we the department, the abc have been really completely hands off any kind of position or opposition to those kinds of things. the first one that we took no position on and basically said let's let the community and the full legislator when it comes down to it vote on whether or not it's appropriate and we'll react to it and process those licenses as they come and there haven't been any problem on those communities to date on facilitating those things but in the department we have the same position very likely for san francisco. some of the

legislative leaders i can tell you at this point have grown a little bit frustrated with the carving out kind of atmosphere that's being played there. when you look at the sponsored bill you have a lot when you are looking at an interest group you have a sponsor there and the way california politics work. some people have gotten fed up with the ideas that there are these carved out areas that have them and they are starting to ask questions about whether or not there might be a good idea to look at them which will make make more allowances for someone to possibly go into lottery system to get a license here but will increase the supply which should reduce the demand in the overall retail cost of those licenses as they are traded on the open market. the abc act

does allow those licenses to be traded on the open market without any price controls on our part. but, what is the future hold there? it's hard to say. i can say at this point that the department itself is not making any specific efforts toward bringing new licenses in, but we are certainly not bringing any barriers to it and when it really comes down to it, we would be very supportive of a broad based legislative effort to work the entire formulas throughout the state so there wouldn't be a bill for every place that wanted new licenses come in including san francisco. >> thank you. and the second part of my question is, i'm also an educator. i get invited to distillery around the world

and which draws a lot of attention for our expertise and spirits and i do a lot of education. i'm a national education bar tenders guild. the liquor laws don't allow us to use alcohol in training. the bar tenders schools in california are a joke. it's a cheap industry where hopeful bar tenders are hoping to take a $300-500 course to use colored liquid. if we are expected to do this for educational purposes, i imagine that we have to do the same thing, to go through the legislators to propose that to the public and propose it to

the abc. i believe this nightlife summit was create because of problems in the public, there was problems with noise, problems with over drinking, a lot of our laws are based on that. i'm here to propose that we have more responsible training for our bar tenders and servers. the cocktail boom around the country has turned bartenders into a true professional. now that professional bartender's job is in question. >> i'm sure it's around the whole notion of where you can drink alcohol and the idea of one of those courses or

presentations or event would whether or not it would constitute a public, somebody opened to the public or whether it was essentially amounting to commercial use of alcohol. and, you know, frankly the law is pretty clear on it and we have not or give a quota to a situation where there is any kind of commercial use of alcohol without the benefit of abc license. there are innovative ways to get ourselves into a scenario, a licensed scenario that could let something like that work and another option would be to hold these courses on locations that are already licensed for the sale or service of alcohol.

unfortunately i'm not familiar with that challenge that you are talking about. if it came down to wanting to have a carved out exception to allow tasting for the sake of educational purposes would like ly take legislation. it's not that something that's happened similarly from a legislative side was for the an allowance of cooking schools for the service of wine in terms of pairing and that kind of thing at a location that didn't have to be a full service sit down traditional restaurant. that was sponsored and made it through the legislation easily. so i would probably say a similar effort toward the furtherance of the art of cocktail in itself would

probably not meet with much more resistance. we are also dealing with and this is something we all know is the three tiered system in the alcohol world is a very strong one and it's no stronger within the industry than it is from the liquor side. there are exceptions that run out from the wine side and beer as working it's way towards a lot of easing away from the strict three tiered side. any from that end is probably going to run into more resistance. there is a bill pending now regarding distilled factories having limit tasting at their

premises. it's approving but -- moving but not so fast from manufacturing interest. if you have questions, we would like to hear it. we would like to hear what kind of scenario you might have here and specifically something that wouldn't involve legislation, per say. >> the first part of my question is to thank you to abc. last year the california music association brought forward the issue of the abc putting 50 percent food, 50 percent liquor conditions on type 47 licenses. that has stopped and we all thank you for that. the problem we are now facing is a democracy of one. under the a bc rules and

regulation and law, one person can effectively shut down an entire business. we are seeing that occur in san francisco especially as new people move in with a new set of expectations, different values and different backgrounds and suddenly they are confronted with a city experience and that one person can shut down a business. how do we address that so that we have more of a democratic process when it comes to the future of these investments and the future jobs that all of these places create, thank you. >> thank you. it's a great point to bring up and one we would really like to talk about. what we are talking about here is delay. people who have the knowledge about how to

get something to go away is to delay it as much as you can. we have not always been as efficient as we could be when it comes down to investigating maybe a singular protest for a licensing application when it goes through and our investigative role sometimes turns to a mediation role or a pursuit of compromised role and depending on the parties which you describe. we are working everyday in taking ourselves in a different direction with these kinds. if we have a protest issue brought during a protest period, our effort is going to look into

that and make our determination in a timely way and if we can't get things settled we are going to move forward with a recommendation of approval and we are going to make much more use of, we already have made much more use of the in the last several years of the interim operating permits. that doesn't always get things done in some of the difficulties that come along with operating under that but it's one of those things that we feel good about the the idea that we can get some doors opened while having to go through these process. we get it in terms of what it means to these folks and how you sit on that day because that one can mean to you because you have a broad community base support and someone from across the district or across town decides to throw something into our lap. i can say that what we are doing is working with the

powers that we have to make sure that we don't let ourselves get used as the regulatory agency and work forward to the powers that we have to give due process no. 1, to community involvement to community in put in the community licensing is why we are here but we also recognize the industry that is developed from what we call professional protesters. we are obligated to address the concerns that are raised in what they submit to us and given their day but we also have a way that things work and everyday we are working closer to getting doors open while that process is in

place. [ applause ] >> thank you so much. all right. it's that time again. >> i know. i want you to do that music. okay. coming up shortly at some point we'll have our chief of the san francisco police department. this next trivia question for your yellow card is about the chief. he's a bit of a rocker at heart although you may not think of that when you see him. so the question is what was chief greg's first rock concert. it was 1975. question no. 3. write down chief's greg concert. >> there is a sea of blue in the back of the room. i hope you know the answer. and speaking of the chief, he has

texted us that he's been delayed and on his way but he's not here yet. so what we are going to do now is i'm going to bring up our executive director jocelyn king who is already here and we are going to introduce our panel. we have a couple questions that many of you are interested in and we hope that our panel can address that. our first panel member is supervisor david campos. [ applause ] >> our second panel member is rich van coal from the a l u unit. sean c'mon up and h from elixir, your famous

entertainment attorney mark raney. and last but not least. c'mon up. >> i just want to say thanks for coming, you guys. i hope we are keeping you awake. we are going to throw some questions to these panelist and we'll have questions. just be nice and there is that mic. it's cord less. you can pull it out and move it around the crowd if you want to. yes. thanks again for coming. we'll take later. >> okay, panelist, recently for the second time senator mark,

introduced last call at 4 a.m.. this would leave it to individual jurisdictions to determine whether or not they wanted to implement a 4 a.m. last call. the resolution did not make it through the committee. keeping in mind that other cities have late last calls and many foreign visitors are used to late hours. can you address the problem with last call as it relates to the problem with san francisco as it strives to compete with tourism. who would like to start? h? >> why don't you start. >> okay. having an international background and having lived in europe, i think it is paramount to the success if the future of san francisco's image that we

attract a global community to come here and entertain themselves and we have a quality of nightlife here that should support that. in my opinion, the 4 a.m. law should be specific to particular businesses, quite frankly. i wouldn't want it for my own business, i wouldn't want it for elixir and it wouldn't apply for my corner and for my neighbors, but it could work on valencia street. it could work in areas where there are -- where it's less likely to be disruptive to and that would help to broaden our spectrum on whether or not nightlife can support that. >> thank you, supervisor? >> thank you. i'm a strong supporter of s b 645 and

supervisor wiener and i are in support. there is a lot of fear that comes with change. the key here is to make people understand what we are talking about. there are 9 states where this has already happened. there are dozens of cities that are an allowing this to happen and the world has not come to an end because what we are talking about is simply local control. the point of this legislation is simply to have jurisdictions like san francisco decide for itself what makes sense and the idea which we were never going to have a blanket rule throughout the city but that we would take it on a case by case city and we would allow the city to figure out and work with city government to see what makes sense. from a public safety issue there is an argument to be made that as a maer