supervisor campos: the morning, everyone, and welcome to the august 5, 2010 meeting of the board of supervisors rules committee. i'm the chair of the committee. i'm joined by vice chairman, supervisor alioto-pier, and by committee member, supervisor mar. are want to thank the staff from sfgtv for covering the meeting today. -- i want to thank the staff. madam clerk, do we have any announcements? >> please make sure to turn on cellular phones and pagers. completed speaker cards and parts of documents being submitted or the far up -- before the file should be submitted to the clerk. supervisor campos: thank you very much. please call item one. and item one, motion approving the mayor's nomination for the appointment of john newlin to the entertainment commission for the term ending july 1, 2013.

supervisor campos: please call item two as well. >> item two, motion rejecting the mayor's nomination for reappointment of john newlin to the entertainment commission. supervisor campos: commissioner, good morning. this is an opportunity for you to make a statement to the rules committee and for us to ask questions, and then we will hear from members of the public. >> for the city of san francisco, for 35 years, retired as a captain with the police department, how many job assignments to many distant stations, narcotics investigations, and various administrative tasks. i was executive director of the department of parking and traffic for four and a half years under mayors brown and jordan. i have served as a member of the entertainment commission for two years and look forward to the possibility of continuing to

serve the city through further appointment. supervisor campos: colleagues, and questions? and i do have a couple of questions, if i may. let me begin by saying that i'm grateful to anyone who wants to serve the city and county of san francisco. i think that the issue of entertainment is one that is very important, and i think it has a lot of different meanings to different people. as a member of the lgbt community, i can tell you that entertainment plays a very important role in the lives of the community, and just the process of being able to interact with other members of the lgbt community is something that entertainment does. times are different now, and there are more people who are openly gay, but there was a time when that is where you saw other members of the community -- at the club, at the bar.

so with that context, i have some concerns about what i see as sort of a trend on the part of certain officials in city hall that at times appears to be anti-entertainment. i'm wondering if you have any thoughts about that issue and some of the trends that we have seen. there has been a lot of criticism of the entertainment commission, and some have indicated that at some point, maybe we have a war against fund in san francisco -- a war against fun. we want entertainment venues to be responsible, but it is a fine balance. >> speaking for myself directly, i joined the police department in 1970 and what the foot beat and controls in northern station where pope st. was -- where polk street was the center of the gay

community at the time. i worked well with the community and never had a problem. in terms of the entertainment commission, i have actually never witnessed any type of resentment towards entertainment aimed at the gay community or, for that matter, any member of san francisco's community. i think what we focus on our clubs had our problems in the community, that the community comes to us and expresses their problems. our first attempt has always been to try to work with the community and the club to resolve those problems. i'm not aware of any effort to single out any group and restrict the fund -- fun. supervisor campos: let me give you an example, and i think it is relevant to your background, given your experience in the police department. there was an incident involving a latino club where you have police officers going in and asking every single person who

was in the club -- close to 200 people -- to come out for the purpose of carting people to make sure that no one under age was found -- for the purpose of carding people. - standing as they did eventually have one person out of that 180 people who did happen to have his brothers drivers license -- my understanding. it was a difficult thing to catch. for a lot of people, it gave the impression that this was an immigration raid. clearly, we want clubs to be responsible, but we also want to make sure that law enforcement approaches these kinds of matters in a careful, sensitive way that does not undercut their need to protect the public, but at the same time recognizes that some tactics may actually go too far. i'm wondering if you could speak a little bit about the relationship between the police

department and the entertainment industry in san francisco. >> as you are well aware, we inherited the responsibility of overseeing entertainment from the police department, and we work with the police department to that end to this day on various issues. we try to have a good working relationship with various system stations, but in the incident you are referring to, this was not in any way motivated by the entertainment commission, requested by the entertainment commission, and might understanding of the incident was that it was actually -- my understanding of the incident was it was actually brought about by the abc, not the police department, and the police department went in for backup to the abc, but it was strictly a state-driven agency. >> -- supervisor campos: did the entertainment commission hold hearings or do any investigation

following the incident? >> we did have a hearing with the members there and the owners of the club and members of the community, and we'd shared all the issues. we took, as i can recall, no accident -- no action on the incident, and based on the citations issued by the abc, the owner voluntarily shut his club down temporarily or permanently -- i do not know. i think they may be reopening. supervisor campos: i think it depends on who you ask. and think one of the reasons they shut down was people stopped coming to the club for fear that it was immigration that was reading the club. the story is not that clear-cut. supervisor mar: thank you for your 34 years of service as a police captain. i wanted to ask you about the violence at suide a -- sued and pink diamons and whether you think you have the authority to

hold accountable clubs that have incidents of violence -- suede and pink diamonds. i know the four mayoral appointees, you are the law- enforcement one, but from your point of view, how could we counter the violence going on in some of the clubs in the city? >> in the biggest thing we could do is thank you for yesterday passing the legislation that gives us the authority to have a firmer grip on clubs that are apparent and non-responsive to our attempts to get them to conform -- i think the biggest thing we could do is thank you for passing the legislation gives us the ability to have a firmer grip on clubs that are apparent. -- that are errant. there is just a few clubs out of control that put a bad name on everything, and now we have the

legislation, i have seen a lot of change in the commission in the two years i have been there. i think the commission will be very responsive to go after clubs that do not conform to the code of conduct that we want to see in the city. supervisor campos: if i may, just a final question, there have been some discussions on the part of some elected officials about stripping some of the powers and authority away from the entertainment commission. i wonder if you have any thoughts on that. >> at this point, i think that would be premature. the last thing the city needs to do is create another bureaucracy and the costs associated with it. i think meeting with staff and looking at the future of the club, again with the legislation you have brought forward, and the publicity and putting the entertainment commission under the spotlight, i think you are going to see actions done that

will serve the city well. i think we are also looking at making the commission, hopefully by the next budget cycle, completely cost-effective where we will receive all the revenues necessary to run the commission and do the enforcement from the fees that we charge throughout the city so that we will not have to come to the city for any money in the future. supervisor campos: i do have one final question -- given your background of the police department, i imagine you have a pretty good understanding of the interaction between the police and the entertainment industry. at times, and number of us have felt that the police department has gone too far in terms of its approach at times. in understand that she's -- i understand thatchief gascon has made many efforts to reach out to community. do you feel that at times the police department has gone too

far? >> there was one instance, and i do not know the whole background, where i had heard that there was a club on the 11th street corridor where an officer and a member of the abc were sitting in the club all night long. i tend to think that may have been a little excessive in terms of trying to conduct an environment for people to have fun, but again, i do not have all the specifics. for me to sit here and tell you that everything is perfect in the police department, there is not somebody that does something there should not be, but i think basically as you said with the new chief and our interaction with the officers on the staging, i think things are going very good, and there is always going to be something that will pop up that you do not want to see happening. supervisor campos: thank you, commissioner. why don't we open up to public comment? any member of the public who would like to speak, please come up. you each have three minutes.

>> thank you very much. supervisors, do you recognize this? it is a nominating petition. you guys probably have other people do this for you. you have to get 20 signatures of people that approve of your being a candidate for office in their particular locale when you run for office. i was living in district 5 in 2004, and i have knowledge of this candidate. i was an old, broke, hit the charge server, and i was looking to raise $500 to run for supervisor -- hippie couch surfer. it is this guy, he was there in his pages of it, and i painted with him a couple days, and that shows compassion. i raise enough money to run for supervisor in district 5. i finished last, as i always do,

but when the days were over, i held this up to him and said, "captain newlin, will you sign this for me?" and he said no way. it shows that not only does he have compassion, but he has common sense. come election day, our paths cross again. i had gone out and done what i usually do, i got -- pardon the expression -- i got shitfaced and went to city hall to watch the returns. i went to city hall, and two cops were blocking the door out front, and they got me down on the ground, and retired captain newlin keeps me from getting killed. that shows even more compassion. i've been running around the city for 40 years. i know people at every level of government since even before -- not before, about the time that captain newlin joined the police

department. this man has as good a reputation in the city as you are ever going to find. you need a cop on the entertainment commission, and you are not going to beat john newlin. supervisor campos: thank you. what any other member of the public like to speak? >> i'm going to go away, but item six, is it okay to throw him in? darcy of there, same thing. -- garcia there, same thing. this guy is fair. supervisor campos: thank you. what any of a member of the public like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. motion by supervisor alioto- pier. can we take that without objection? thank you very much. >> will you be sending this item for? supervisor campos: if you could send it to committee report. please call items five and six out of order. >> and five -- supervisor campos: i'm sorry, 6

and 7. >> item 6, motion approving the mayor's appointment of michael garcia, an item 7, motion rejecting the mayors of the appointment of michael garcia. supervisor campos: the morning and welcome to the rules committee. >> -- the morning and welcome to the rules committee. >> -- good morning. >> i first came here because i bought a seat on the pacific stock exchange in order to trade equity options. i retired from the -- from that in 1980. since then, i have taught business crisis. i also am currently and have been for