out on their 1 year anniversary when the represent was doubled. on top of that having a detrimental effect on the local businesses. all the high paying jobs are in new york. they even a hired a contractor from new mexico. now we shouldn't just let them change the spirit of our neighborhood. >> next speaker, please. >> i own a store across from the space for jack spade. i have been on the fence about this issue from the very beginning. but, after being on 15th street for 6 years now and seen a decline of my street. i have lived there for 6 years

and lately my building is getting graffiti constantly, my sales are down, the foot traffic is down, the homeless are everywhere, i have to pick up feces in front of my building. i put my life savings into that business. is it important for me to be local? yeah. would i believe that kate spade would stop that from happening? i do not. they will be paying the same rent. do i think it's a formula retail. it's up to you guys to decide. as far as what i this i is best for my street, i think basically how most people in my street feel it would be beneficial to us. 16th street is a mess. valencia street is beautiful . people objecting to this are on valencia street. i

really do hope they go in and i hope it will help my block and neighborhood which is what i really think would be the outcome. i think it would be an asset to my street. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> thank you. my name is jonah. i'm an owner of a barber on valencia street and mission resident as well. to say both resident and business owners who believes in the best interest in the neighborhood. my grandparents opened a landri place. the area around 18th and valencia has been greatly improved. it's mine

understanding that jack spade made this location on 15th street. it's a street i avoid. i have a four-year-old kid and i usually walk right passed 16 street. it's not what it should be. i would hope that this would start some investment on that block. i understand and agree with some of the locals and concerns they have regarding jack spade and i don't endorse them. but i don't believe it's those here who decide who gets to fill the open spots. i feel they have met the requirements under the current code. if local businesses don't like that code, they can try to change it. i have read and agreed with the letter with some of the

16th street merchants have filed in support. thank you for your time. >> next speaker. >> good evening. my name is benny gore. i live next door. i own a store across the street where jack spade is supposed to go. it's not prime location. i think a store like jack spade will help a lot. it's pretty gross, last week a homeless man walked into my store and accosted my employees and i -- constantly pick up feces and trash from the front of my

store. i think it would help having them here. >> i live across the street on valencia between 18th and 19. i support jack spade going into the mission. it will benefit the 16th street corridor and provide a clean storefront. it will do so while operating with some of the existing laws in this city which is it's right. i feel it's what this opposition is looking for. they think it should be formula retail. their argument is based on concern what will happen in the future if they are allowed to create stores like jack spade. i understand their argument. my understanding concern about their large corporation about rents being driven up by the landlord and

by employers not caring much because their owner ship is ab sent. this is not a hype tell discussion. those concerns are not what this appeal is about. moreover, those concerns do not hold up. jack spade is not here to out spent small businesses. i have met their employees and they li here in the city and they care about the business. if the opposition is interested in doing small buys. should we worry about it if this appeal succeeds. permit can be build for anything. for most businesses that can be the death sentence. laws are on a book for a reason. businesses

should be allows. if we allow that to happen, businesses large and small will be able to succeed. >> next speaker. >> my name is michael cats and i starts cat bagels 20 years ago, my business is located across the street from the potential sight for jack spade. i'm against having jack spade coming into my neighborhood. the main serene i feel like the sentiment is we have a lot of problems and i don't believe jack spade is going to fix these problems. the problems we have in the neighborhood are almost all after midnight. the

graffiti and the dirt we see everywhere. i think we as a community are on a dangerous situation when we look for multinational corporations which is how i perceive them. i think we are in a dangerous position to look for them. if we want to clean our store or store front we need to look at ourselves and look at our neighbors to fix the problem that way. this is potentially the other problem i have is that any other business can get a little subbusiness and have the structural support. and business schools degrees and so forth and how are we supposed to compete if we have been here for so long and we are part of the culture and part of this

community in terms of how people feel when they do business with us. the residents should know about this and they did not know about this and they should be part of this discussion. it's been unknown. i didn't know about it until 2 months ago. we supposed to know about these things. >> thank you, next speaker. >> my name is andrew mckinley and i was the owner of the adobe bookshop in the space that jack spade is now renovating. i was there for 25 years, but the landlord, he opted as is his right to seek a higher rent. a better tenant, quote unquote. so i'm a victim

of the situation. i have enjoyed working with the expediter, very nice fellow, i have enjoyed talking to someone from jack spade who has offered to try and help my book business by buying some of the book, but i feel that the jack spade people were mislead by the landlord as to the circumstances of how this space became available for them to consider. the landlord is his right decided to seek a better tenant, but he didn't gauge very much the attitude of the community which does resent very much what is happening. i don't blame jack spade. i sort of blame the landlord, but it's hard to blame landlords. i just feel that you should consider

the community which is very upset, a certain amount of them. there are other people here tonight who support what is going to happen. the old landlord said we'll never deny anyone a living. his children, thought a little differently. anyway. thank you very much. >> actually i have a question for you sir. can you tell me what your previous rate of rent was and what is the proposed rate of rent would be? >> the landlord was cagy about a price. we were paying $4500 a month for the space. and he never offered us a set rate. he asked us to offer a new rate and we did as a group, this cooperative group and he never got back to us. and he put the

building on the market and obviously someone jack spade became aware of it. >> the question is someone earlier mentioned the rental rate was triple from what you were currently paying? >> he never offered us any exact amount a rate. i have no idea what he negotiated with jack spade. >> never mind jack spade. what did you offer them? you said that you the coalition offered them something? >> we offered them $8,000 a month. >> okay. thank you very much. >> next speaker? >> thank you very much. my name is wald i'm the founding of the

business on the street. i would like to propose to you what would it be like if i opened another store in 6 months and called it retail therapy. does the public have the right to have any input into what's going on here. i understand that we are making a decision about a permit, but i think i would really like to get my neighbors and my customers the opportunity to be able to give you the input that i think they would all provide you which is to say that they don't want it on 16th street. thank you for your time. >> next speaker, please. >> good evening, my name is don allen. i am also the owner of

the casanova lounge for the last 16 years. i heard a lot of opinions about this issue over the last few months. when it came up i had never heard of jack spade or kate spade. i asked my wife what is jack spaed, she said that's kate spade's men's store. i think that indicates a popular knowledge of what jack spade is to the public. i think the valencia corridor has made an effort in the pass 2 years to try to avoid a formula retail without a conditional use hearing. i think that whether intentionally or not, the jack spade moniker has a lot of kate spade to buy -- bypass the

intent and my case the conditional use hearing would be a benefit to this community because it's very divided an it's obviously an issue that needs an airing in our community. we have not had an opportunity to do that. the merchants haven't even discussed it. i think we all need a -- i'm just an advocate

for this area. i feel if business mission business owners would like to help make the mission community better, i would be happy to talk to them about ways to get involved with housing homeless and keeping people off the streets. and i also think that there are so many people that aren't able to be here today and that the conditional use hearing would allow other members of the community to come and speak about how they feel about jack spade moving in. thank you for your time. >> thank you. next speaker.

>> hi, i'm celeste rogers. i have to say i live on 16th street within a block of the storefront. i have lived in my apartment for 16 years. i have seen a lot of changes. i have to echo what i have so eloquently heard tonight from people opposed this. i came to this neighborhood because i love it. what draws people to the neighborhood and it has in my view is what makes it different, great mexican food, terrific thrift stores, old dive bars that have been around for a long time. it's not places like a jack spade store. i would hate to see it become like that. i walk that block everyday for 18 years. it

is really true that it's gotten very bad. i really don't see what a daytime retail store is going to do to change that for the first time in 18 years i went to my first police community meeting last month because of my neighborhood and especially with the bart station area, the bar that we have had that has had two shootings in the last year. i agree there are some real problems, but i don't see what a daytime retail store would do to improve that. i don't want to see the areas i love priced out and i feel that's going happen. if they were priced out, i would like to see more interesting things come in. i want to keep the uniqueness of the neighborhood alive. if stores like jack

spade camen, i would want to leave. >> next speaker. >> hi, this you so much for staying up past your bedtime and mine. the reason why so many of us moved is to san francisco is to see different and interesting things. jack spade is what you can see all over the world. there are 9 other ones. something i want to address is slightly off topic, food express is something they brought up. they are a local store and they contribute locally to the pets and homeless dogs and cats to this town. they weren't allowed to go in. i think with some precedent which is jack spade which is known internationally shouldn't be allowed to go in either. one of the reasons why jack spade to go in is because of the gentrification of what's

happening in the mission. what if you can buy more expensive hand bags and purchase things that don't do anything but make you look like you have an expensive handbag. thank you for your time and i appreciate it. let us have more interesting things around than the same things over and over. >> next speaker. >> my name is adam and i live in the district where this controversy is happening today. i work in technology. i have my entire life. i work in enterprise software. what people would definitely call a techie. i'm wearing formula retail now. i'm a capitalist. i have grown up to believe that way. i have message -- majored

in economics. i'm here to oppose jack spade in the neighborhood. i took a walk and ended up walking down grand street. it's quintessential san francisco. it's beautiful, there is not one recognizable chain formula store there on that entire stretch from green all the way to broadway. i have so many friends in the mission and i have known andrew mckinley for a very long time and gave money to support adobe to stay where they are. unfortunately that didn't have happen. i would like to see this corridor. sasha, i feel for us. it's not a very good area right now. unfortunately, i don't think this is going to help. the beauty and grace that's happened in the

valencia street corridor was done with money. the same can be done on 16th street. thank you for your time. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> my name is lauren. thank you so much for your patience tonight. i also want 16 street to have sparkly sidewalks and fewer empty store fronts. but to turn to a formula retail store as a savior is not only misguided but shishging community responsibility. jack spade isn't going to help it. other local businesses are going to be priced out and what we'll be left is is more empty store fronts because smaller

independent businesses can't compete or laws are going to change and 16 street is going to be old navy's and kate spade. it's a ripple effect. if we want things to be better, then we need to work together and not turn to a new york corporation to save us. >> thank you. neck speaker, please. >> hi, thank you for your time. my name is jake bar low with the neighborhood association. we have an opposition with jack spade opening. eye -- i have a personal objection to it as well. i buy my coffee at cats coffee, i buy my beer on 26th market and by my bourbon, and

i buy my comics books at mission economics and art. i know what these guys do with their money. they reinvest it. >> next speaker. >> i'm a member of the adobe book cooperative as well. thank you for your time. i want to make one point, i think we heard one compelling argument that jack spade is a formula retail by letter of the law. also we can consider the spirit of the law. i don't know detail of what will make this qualified or not, but i'm a normal person. i have an understanding of what a chain businesses, i understand the mission doesn't want to have a chain business, the intention of the law as already stated. we have heard that 11 is an

arbitrary number. when i tell people what that issue here is the definition of chain is 11 stores, jack spade currently has 10 and this will be the 11. so clearly if you think about this spirit of this law and what we are trying to do this are this case at least deserves a public hearing. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> my name is robert patterson. i own one of the fancy men's store that sell $300 genes -- jeans in the mission. before probably a mao months ago i

was in support. the thing about those shops is that they are all independent stores and there is no way we can pay $10,000 a month in rent. my rent is $5500. if my rent was $10,000 there would be no way to maintain my business. they have a 4 x margin on my product. i manufacture my own product in san francisco and i can't compete against that. it's impossible. they have full vertical integration. they pull all of their resources from kate spade inc.. i think it not much to ask for a conditional

use. if my small restaurant could do it, i'm pretty sure a billion dollar enterprise can do it as well. if a community supports them, i think it would be a great asset to the neighborhood. when i opened sorrow i voyager 2 years ago, it was a hellhole. the rest of our shops really cooperate and now we have tourist from all over the neighborhood. if jack spade is a real leader, they should play with nike and all of those shops. >> next speaker. >> good evening board medications. any -- members.

my name is erin. in that capacity it's done with local independence. it's also done with regionals and what we call formula retail as well. tonight for me this is not about formula retail. it's about reliance, reliance upon an individual company or a corporation who follows the letter of the law and make commitments based on that and have those revoked. i'm concerned permanently what that would do with independent stores and only sharing that their commitments as determined by the city of san francisco with letters of determination as an example would do to our

neighborhoods. it's rather concerning. i request that you consider not revoking the permit. thank you oovm in -- any other public comment? >> seeing none we'll move the appellant for rebuttal. i'm going to ask you to hold on for 1 minute until commissioner fung is back.

>> thank you four