have 20 employees and they are fed up because first it was the health care initiative or the minimum wage with no tip credits. now the people making 30-$40 an hour are making more than the owners. you will kill the industry, you

will kill the reason people come to spend money in san francisco in our number one industry. >> please refrain from clapping. i generally don't want to have too long. if you could refrain, i would appreciate it. >> i am a young mother working with horizons are limited. i speak for all of the when i say the recent budget cuts have ruined our communities and our mission for reform. i supported this fee because we need this program to stay strong. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm the program director at horizons unlimited.

i've had the pleasure to witness the benefit and the light changes that prevention and treatment programs have had for our youth. i have witnessed the horrible effect that alcohol-related harm has had on families, youth, and our community is. what we are asking for is a pittance in relation to the billions of dollars of profit made by alcohol. the services that this would support is vital to supporting and sustaining families and communities. i want to share some of the activities that we do which is medium messaging. on the way here, i am also educating myself, i'm looking on the billboards and i probably passed about 10 alcohol-related billboards. at the end of each of says, trent responsibly. we're asking them to act

responsibly, thank you. >> i am here to represent the san francisco green party who stands in strong support of this fee to pay for services. to give some good indications, i want to bring this down to a very personal level. first of all, on a positive note toward alcohol. i like this stuff. i am a fan of microbrew. i like organic red wine, especially from california. there is nothing more important to me then after 10 days of

working and fighting, for me to kick it with my friends in the bar and relax. there's a flip side to my experience and that is i was raised by father it was a severe alcoholic and he got a violent and abusive when he was drunk. the impact on that on my life and the life of my siblings is profound this is a profound economic impact and an emotional impact. on one night, my father chase my mother out into the darkness carrying a shotgun and took a shot at her. lucky for me, he missed. i would like everyone to take a step and think about what my life would have been like if he had not missed when he shot at my mother.

every day, an abuser of alcohol does not miss. i cannot call myself irresponsible drinker. no one can call themselves a responsible wholesaler or retailer if they're not willing to make a couple of cents on the dollar to make sure that we are getting some funds available so as much as that kind of thing that happened in my life does not happen to other people. >> thank you. >> thank you, supervisors. i'm the director of the house services through the aids coalition. i am here to speak in favor of this mitigation fee. i'm speaking for the aids foundation and as someone who was worked in this conidiophore many years with the treatment on demand planning council. as someone who has come here many times to testify to try to

preserve some funding for substance abuse treatment which is generally the first thing to get cut every time there is a budget crunch. having a dedicated funding stream would be a vast improvement to our current system where we have to go through budget cuts every year. the reason i'm here is alcohol and other substances are primary drivers of the hiv epidemic. this is something which was prominently highlighted in the international aids conference that i just returned from. if we have any hope of ending the epidemic, that will not happen unless we have sufficient funding for of all and treatment and prevention. i hope that you will pass this the. >> thank you.

>> [singing] police released a fee, please let it go police -- please release the feed, please let it go. please release the fee and set them free and they will get all of the help of around four free. release the help and let them live again. >> thank you, next speaker. >> hello, i'm a lifelong resident of san francisco and a small business owner. i paid every single tax, license

and fee, that has been asked to me of the city and county of liasson -- a san francisco. the fee went up to 1015 without any increase in city services. the worker works on my street will be unemployed by november. my water rates have been raised, i have to pay $200 a month to have the sidewalks clean because the city says this is my responsibility. i'd pay an amusement see. if i could ever get ahead of enough, i would have to cover health insurance. i will be forced to put a further strain on my customers which will lessen their ability

to go out for cheap entertainment and will eventually put me and many of your constituents out of business. who will you collect your taxes and fees from many are currently or recently unemployed. our rates have gone up so that they're paying a $2 cover charge. if they like to take public transportation, they are limited in the services. i don't charge for games or amusement said that they can stretch their dollars. these are people who simply want to commune with like-minded citizens. your own biography says that you first move to a cafe. on one of these, they are two letters 72 liquor licenses.

81% are beer and wine only. he will put your constituents out of work. >> i can see how all of this confuses you. we favor the initiatives as proposed. we see where other people are coming from as far as being out of work and unable to support themselves. when you weigh the amount of damage that is being done to the community and the fact that many people are dying such as being on the receiving end on cirrhosis of the liver and numerous cancers that are caused by alcohol alone, i believe that this initiative should be passed and the fact that our services used to prevent this type of abuse must be shared. not only shared by the people

who who are on the overall end and the beginning line of the alcohol business, this is the beginning step that i feel that i would like to get together with the supervisors and have a big business as far as the owners and manufacturers of the alcohol to set up a trust fund just for people who end up having to need the emergency services as far as saving their lives is concerned. this is a complex situation and the pros and cons have to be weighed as far as the people or actually being hurt by the alcohol. >> good afternoon. we are proud of the services that the city has provided an has historically provided in the health department and fire department who regardless of what is causing the injury or the sickness. we believe those programs are

vital and their pay for by san francisco businesses. they pay over $350 million alone in direct business taxes to the city of san francisco. i urge you to make public the opinion of the city attorney's office after the legality of this feat. you are limited in state law to three times the fees that you can impose, a fee on property transactions such as entitlements. a fiat direct services for a particular recipient of service. regulatory fees, if you are not legally able to regulate the wholesale or sale of liquor in the state of california or directly attacks this. what is the regulation that is being imposed by this ordinance. i could find no regulation, i

could only find a fee and where it's paid back to the health department. an oakland case which did find a fee on retailers of alcohol went to the question of the code of conduct at the street side of sale. under the oakland case, you cannot impose a fee which is a tax in disguise. when a fee is imposed for a regulatory purpose. the imposed some is not a tax but a fee. when this is for a revenue purpose and the payment gives the right to carry on without further condition, this is a tax. we believe that this is an illegal see and we would like to get the city attorney's opinion.

>> thank you. >> please refrain from clapping. >> good afternoon, i am a winemaker living and working in san francisco and i have had a wine store since 1978. i would like to bring to the committee's attention that california is very unique in one real interesting thing in that we can also make wine in the valley and then turn around and sell it to you. there are about 2000 of us that can do that. we are essentially the wholesaler. then there as another 5000 that we rent space from so your numbers are off. implementation will be a nightmare. the 5000 winery's, you missed.

the 2000 wine makers, you totally missed. you're looking at every airline in san francisco which has its own license. they will get this feat. there is a perception, it looks like it has gone from the $40 cents a bottle down to 50 cents. there will still be a perception world wide that we are trying to fix 2000 trunks on the streets with a $2 tax. that is not san francisco. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> i am a professional bartender. i currently work in district 6.

by selling alcohol, and might cause in the problems that we are trying to fix? this is the experiments, this is a very noble cause, we know how that when ended. coming back to the local level, when you have many many businesses paying into city taxes and programs like health the san francisco that are trying to help the health of this city and keep it in good condition, how can we add more taxes to