reasons. the revenue must be spent on the health cost to our city services caused by the alcohol problem. second, the revenues will come from the people who consume the product that caused the alcohol problem. third, among the city services, supported by the alcohol fee, will be substance abuse treatment programs. in a 1994 report by the california department of alcohol and drug programs concluded that for every $1 spent on substance abuse treatment programs $7 is saved in taxpayer costs. we need more substance abuse treatment programs and an end to the waiting lines to get into these programs. lastly, i want to make a pitch for alcoholism prevention. research shows that more than 40% of youth who start drinking before age 15 develop alcohol

dependence. please establish programs to effectively discriminate -- excuse me -- to effectively discourage teenage drinking. and on this last point, i have a flyer that i'd like to pass out to you, supervisors. and thank you for your time. supervisor avalos: next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. my name is tom and i'm an alcoholic. i have been coming up on four years. i had four months of treatment in rehab that i paid for myself because my insurance didn't. i've owned three bars in san francisco. i currently own glen park station. and i think you placing the blame on a lot of us. i've been reading in the paper about the cost of ambulance, you know, alcohol-related

ambulances. you ask any of the people that have spoken here how many times have they called an ambulance for one of their customers. i've seen restaurants where they had to call an ambulance. i'd say out of 10 times an older person having a heart attack or some other physical problem. i think the problem lies with the city of san francisco, and your very l.a.x. -- in front of -- well, next door to me is a taceria. there has been this pan handler for the last three, four years. i see cops walk by and call him by name and say, how are you doing? when can we get these people off the street? i think there's, you know, some kind of laws against panhandlings.

we don't want to fill our jails with a bunch of homeless people. they're overcrowded. why not set up the shelters and detain these people where they have to follow rules and regulations? an article in the paper just the other day about a fellow that said, i don't like to go into the shelter. they don't let me smoke. they make me go to bed too early. well, sorry. there's a cause an and effect to everything. you're making it easy for these people to cause the problems. the bars, restaurants, aren't. ok. thank you very much. supervisor avalos: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. debbie from the san francisco human services network. we support the alcohol mitigation fee. a few years ago voters in san francisco approved treatment on demand, but it's never been implemented. there has never been sufficient funds to implement it and every year when we come here at budget time substance abuse services are always the first

to be cut primarily because of the lack of any federal or state leveraged funds. so we need to do what we can locally to support those services. and we know that it doesn't show up in the economists' report that the money we invest in substance abuse prevention and treatment will save us tremendous amounts in the long run because of the other costs of getting people off the street are repeatedly put in the e.r. this makes complete fiscal sense for the city of san francisco. we have tremendous respect for the small businesses and the vibrant nightlife that we have in this city. but a few cents a drink is not enough to keep people away from having a good time at night. and $18 million is a tremendous amount of money to support the services that we need. regardless of how you feel about mechanisms to bring in revenue, whether it's a fee or a tax, whether they're too high or too low, i think most of us

agree on one fundamental thing, that they should be fair. these costs are already borne by the taxpayers in one way or another and this is really about who's paying them. given the cost the taxpayers from the excessive use or abuse of alcohol, it is fundamentally fair that those costs be borne by those who are responsible for them. in other words, the producers and the retailers who profit directly from the manufacturing and sale and ultimately the consumers, all of us who pay a few cents to ensure that the costs are borne ultimately by those who are creating the problem. thank you. supervisor avalos: thank you. next speaker, please. i have one more card. anyone else who would like to speak, please line up as well. selena and anyone else who would like to comment on this item can please come forward. next speaker. >> mr. wright, i spoke last week on this issue and i demonstrated i have 50% towards

initiative, 50% against. i understand how the people who are impacted on how their loss of income will be decreased, and i see the way they feel, the way they do but the issue at hand weighs more than the problem that you're suffering. on the grounds that alcohol is contributing into millions of dollars in taxpayers' money being spent on people who abuse and get sick and have to go to the hospital and use numerous services by the city pertained by the fire department, the police and the doctors at san francisco general hospital. this is a historical moment where the cost of the injury must be shared by the people who are online and handing out the alcohol to the people who need the services. to begin with, you're not the only people who are responsible. this is a historical moment that started out at the tail end of the alcohol chain of the

people who were passing out the alcohol to the people who need the services. starting off in the city and county and eventually is going to end up in the state and senate, board of organization and i believe that the brewries, the manufacturers who are making multibillion collars profit on alcohol, the production where the distillation columns used to produce this alcohol should also share the cost as far as overall states of the united states of america is concerned. but starting off here at the city and county of san francisco. the people talking about they need to have the city attorney look into this. if the city attorney looks into it and incorporates state law pertaining to the section of law that's called contributary negligence where you're not actually intentionally causing harm but yet your alcohol is the reason and main factor on the reason of the problem you could be charged 50% of the services that's being paid.

that's called contributary negligence. you're actually contributing to the problem. supervisor avalos: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. i was watching this on the monitor last week and the discussion about mandatory, you know, mitigation and what have you. after that we know we have a problem getting taxes into the city. my concern is the fact that i don't think enough companies are being taxed to help our city because last friday on the news, it was friday night on channel 2, and i've been to some of your offices to give you the news clipping that i received, the mercury news, never san francisco news, there was a press conference this

morning at 10:00. they're going to have 50 trucks coming into san francisco on a daily basis for the next three years. and i think you should be able to tax them axle of $1 and you will get more than what you're asking for today with the people that you are trying to get the taxes from. and i think it's no more fair that people from the outside be taxed coming into our city breaking up the streets and everything in our cities and looking at how much money you will be able to receive if you think about this and make this part of your project that is coming up dealing with taxes. because the big corporations are not being taxed. had is one. -- this is one. thank you very much.

supervisor avalos: thank you, ms. jackson. next speaker, please. >> hi. good afternoon. my name is selena and i work for an organization called horizons, unlimited. i know as we hear these arguments, the biggest question is, will san francisco continue to thrive? will businesses stay here? will they continue their payroll? will they continue their services? the yes is yes. people will still patronize small businesses. i think businesses will be able to reap properties. -- profits. as a prevention provider, we're spending a lot of time looking at cost improvement strategies for providing these prevention services. we're looking at evidence-based practices that we feel will be strong motivators for families to continue to thrive within the community. and speaking on behalf of a lot of families and a lot of youth, there is a lot of support for this bill out here. whether or not families can

leave work and come and provide public comment and testimony, we speak on a lot of youth and families against, i believe that the families will continue to support local businesses. but this is money that's desperately needed. there is not enough money in these budgets for us to provide based on the demand for these youth that need these types of services. so we want you to look at it carefully. understand that we're doing our part to provide these services. and with a little bit more help we'll be able to provide a lot more needed and vital services to the youth and families in our community. thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is charles mcintyre. i'm here once again. i represent the 2700 union glass workers here in the city of san francisco. i work in a glass plant myself. and not only are you talking about losing the retail jobs.

you're also going to be hitting the jobs in our industry. the majority of the glass that we make is for the alcohol industry. a lot is for the small wineries, the small brewers. they take a hit. one of the first things they do is they look for different container types or look for another place for their containers. right now one of the main places they're going is china and mexico. we're looking at approximately -- it could be as much as 300 jobs in this industry. last year alone we've lost over 500 jobs because of this economy. and what that also affects is these jobs are manufacturing jobs. you know, with good benefits, but they're green jobs. when we make the glass containers, these containers go recycled and they go through our furnaces and it's one of the greenest containers there is. it's in the earth. it goes back to the ground.

when we start losing these jobs we stop losing the ability to recycle these containers. not only are we hurting jobs, we are going backwards as far as the city wanting to be green and the state wanting to be green. as far as the greenhouse emissions, the more recycled glass we use, it lowers emissions and helps the environment. so when you look at the umbrella of what this fee can do, it can run like a wildfire and we could really devastate these jobs and this industry. thank you very much. supervisor avalos: thank you. are there any other members of the public who i'd like to -- who'd like to comment on this item? please come forward. >> good afternoon. michael from marine institute. i just wanted to thank superavalos and -- supervisor avalos and the co-sponsors of this ordinance in acknowledging that san francisco is suffering an epidemic of alcohol-related

harm and that to establish a dedicated funding source that will treat and provide prevention services is a noble and excellent public health solution. thank you. supervisor avalos: thank you very much. and seeing no other member of the public here we will close public comment. i want to thank everyone for coming here today and last week as well. your comments here about this item. a lot of folks from bars i know well and love, from the connecticut yankee and bottom of the hill, slims, american music hall, this is not about me coming from a temp rant society. this is about how we can maintain a level of service here in san francisco for our great needs around alcohol prevention and treatment. and it's a -- alcohol's a

product unlike other products. there are impacts to alcohol and so looking at this makes some sense from some points of view that we would want to be able to be able to charge a fee, to be able to recover some of the costs we incur as a city and county to deal with the overconsumption of alcohol. and just to renew mexico rate what those are -- renumerat what those are, identified in our study, the sobering center at the department of public health, our mobile assistance patrol van that often will pick up people who have been drinking -- overdrinking who are on the streets, our community substance abuse services enduring direct treatment costs as well as prevention costs, our beds at general hospital, our jail health detox facility. our fire department services dealing with transports. to our sobering center, also

our transports to our hospitals. there are other costs that the city incurs for the overconsumption of alcohol. just this past weekend there were -- there was violence that happened outside a bar that i would say that alcohol had a relationship with. that is not covered in this fee. it's not -- we did not assume the cost in the study because we wanted to have the more -- the most narrow point of view that we could identify for the costs that are incurred by the city. we are charging not the -- we are charging this fee not at the retail outlets, not directly to the retail outlets, not directly to the bars. we are charging the fees to the wholesalers and distributors who are selling the alcohol within the city and county of san francisco. that is a major difference here that we are, you know, what the intent is behind this legislation. there is an impact. i have heard that.

that this fee is being passed through to small businesses and i do have -- i do have concern about how that does happen. i have heard your concerns and how they've been expressed to me, and i do appreciate your expressing them. and one thing i want to look at, the part to me that seems most important that i look at is for the people who are small manufacturers within san francisco, the microbrewerers, the people who sell who are small wineries, how we might be able to look at some kind of an exemption for those people who are wholesalers, but who are small business wholesaler. i don't think they are the type of industry that is manufacturing the products or selling the products here in san francisco to have the greatest impact on the overconsumption of alcohol that leads to these costs that we

incur, the city and county. so that's something i will look at and consider for if we are to move this legislation forward today or for amendments for september 7 when this -- if this gets to the full board. so, colleagues, i would like to have your support for that. based on discussions today and last week in that there is a great deal of concern from the business community, i would like to see if we could have this discussion at the full board with a motion that we send this forward without recommendation for the september 7 meeting when we get back from our break. a motion to send forward without recommendation from the committee, without objection. thank you, colleagues. again, thank you, everyone, for being here. and if beam would like to contact -- and if people would like to contact my office, i

will be open for questions on this subject matter. madam clerk, we are adjourned. thank you very much.

i'm the president of friends of mclaren park. it is one of the oldest

neighborhood community park groups in san francisco. i give a lot of tours through the park. during those tours, a lot of the folks in the group will think of the park as very scary. it has a lot of hills, there's a lot of dense groves. once you get towards the center of the park you really lose your orientation. you are very much in a remote area. there are a lot of trees that shield your view from the urban setting. you would simply see different groves that gives you a sense of freedom, of being outdoors, not being burdened by the worries of city life. john mclaren had said that golden gate park was too far away. he proposed that we have a park in the south end of the city. the campaign slogan was, people need this open space. one of the things that had to open is there were a lot of people who did a homestead here, about 25 different

families. their property had to be bought up. so it took from 1928 to 1957 to buy up all the parcels of land that ended up in this 317 acres. the park, as a general rule, is heavily used in the mornings and the evenings. one of the favorite places is up by the upper reservoir because dogs get to go swim. it's extremely popular. many fights in the city, as you know, about dogs in parks. we have 317 acres and god knows there's plenty of room for both of us. man and his best friend. early in the morning people before they go to work will walk their dogs or go on a jog themselves with their dogs. joggers love the park, there's 7 miles of hiking trails and there's off trail paths that hikers can take. all the recreational areas are

heavily used on weekends. we have the group picnic area which should accommodate 200 people, tennis courts are full. it also has 3 playground areas. the ampitheater was built in 1972. it was the home of the first blues festival. given the fact that jerry garcia used to play in this park, he was from this neighborhood, everybody knows his reputation. we thought what a great thing it would be to have an ampitheater named after jerry garcia. that is a name that has panache. it brings people from all over the bay area to the ampitheater. the calls that come in, we'd like to do a concert at the jerry garcia ampitheater and we do everything we can to accommodate them and help them because it gets people into the park. people like a lot of color and

that's what they call a park. other people don't. you have to try to reconcile all those different points of view. what should a park look like and what should it have? should it be manicured, should it be nice little cobblestones around all of the paths and like that. the biggest objective of course is getting people into the park to appreciate open space. whatever that's going to take to make them happy, to get them there, that's the main goal. if it takes a planter with flowers and stuff like that, fine. you know, so what? people need to get away from that urban rush and noise and this is a perfect place to do it. feedback is always amazement. they don't believe that it's in san francisco. we have visitors who will say, i never knew this was here and i'm a native san franciscoan. they wonder how long it's been here. when i tell them next year we'll get to celebrate the 80th

anniversary of the park,k, >> we" today we are visiting southern exposure in san francisco alison prepares to launch a fantastic new project called beautiful possibilities. we will send them on a two-year adventure crisscrossing the united states to investigate american history and contemporary culture. it is using a traveling road show as inspiration.

she will sit down and talk with residents in search of stories and experiences that reveals exactly what makes us americans. >> beautiful possibility is a traveling research project that i will take on a five-month journey across the united states and lower canada. i document this tore on a map that i painted for the project and also from previous projects called the road map to lost america. on the map i have taken all of the contemporary borders off the map and replaced them with native territories, and then overlaid it with contemporary highways. i have scheduled venue stops at different areas along the tour, from california to south dakota, that will serve as headquarters for my local research. when i was researching the traveling medicine show, i came across this.

they had put out an elixir, and it referred to the elements that came out because of the high stress, high-pressure life, mostly because of the industrial revolution. anyway, i was fascinated by the term american-itis, and i thought it did a lot about the stress-related illnesses, and i was impressed that they picked up on that and the 1800's. i did a survey to see if it was irrelevant element today. i have a series of eight painted banners that are retellings of american history. i am particularly interested in transition history between native and european histories and retelling them as if they were a popular myth. there is a mix of eras and characters and times drat these

banners. -- and times throughout these banners. i use the olympics and the melting pot, or things reduced down, and come out of this reduction. and something else transforms out of it. they had this strict code of who we should be as americans, and then i had andrew jackson fanning the flames. this first contact, down to george bush in 2008. all of the characters that appear are real characters that are taken from my research. we are an interesting mix and i want to provoke wonder about who we are. every one of the characters are taken from actual photographs or documents that i found in my research on american history. in a lot of my banners, you conceal -- uc the melting pot,

the imagery and myth that we use in our culture. talking about these reductions of all these different mixes of people, how you distill the experience. that is something i want to think about, collecting the ideas and ingredients, and i wanted to do the san francisco de lexie. -- elixir. we found a spring water underneath a church in cow hollow. we put rosebuds in the water to attract peace, and it made a meade. it was sitting in the gallery. we distill that through local herbs. it was really surprising how delicious it was, because we were mixing a lot of seemingly in congruent ingredients, and it was delicious and different from