>> good evening. welcome to the meeting of the san francisco board of appeals. the presiding officer is board president tanya peterson. joining her are commissioners garcia, fung, and hwang. we expect commissioner goh momentarily. i wonder if ms. young is here, if she could raise her hand. i want to let the audience know we have translation device is here for anyone who needs translation services. i will ask again and see if she arrived and can help to translate that message and to

set of the headphones. sitting to my left is the deputy city attorney. she will provide the board with any needed legal advice this evening. in the front row, we have representatives from some of the city departments you'll be hearing from this evening. we have senior building inspector joe duffey representing the department of building inspection. scott sanchez, the building administrator, is here representing the planning department and planning commission. jarvus murrais murray is represg the transportation department. john hwang represents st. use and mapping. the board's legal assistant is the boards except to director. >> the board requests to turn off all cell phones, beepers, and pagers.

please carry on conversations in the hallway. the board's rules of presentation are as follows. appellants, permit holders, and department respondents each have seven minutes to present their cases and three minutes for but a. people affiliated with these parties must include their comments within the seven and three minutes. those who are not affiliated with the parties have up to three minutes to address the board, with no rebuttal. to assist in proportion of minutes, members of the public who wish to speak are asked but not required to submit a speaker card or business card to staff when you come up to the lectern. speaker cards and pans are available on the left side of the podium. the board welcome your comments and suggestions. there are customer satisfaction service cards on the left side of the podium. if you have questions about requesting a rehearing, please speak to staff during a break or after the meeting, or call the

office tomorrow morning. the office is located at 1650 mission, room 304. this meeting is broadcast live on san francisco government television, sfgtv, cable channel 78. these are available for purchase directly from sfgtv. at this point, we will conduct our swearing in process. if you intend to testify tonight, please raise your right hand and say "i do" after you have been sworn in or affirmed. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? thank you. >> thank you, mr. pachinko.

we have one housekeeping item this evening which has to do with item eight, appeal 10-103, regarding a tree removal permits. the parties have jointly requested that this matter be continued to january 26, 2011. with emotion, we can move the item to that date. is there any public comment on this rescheduling? simenon, if you could call the roll, please. >> on the motion from the president to reschedule 10-103 to january 26, 2011. commissioner fung: aye. commissioner garcia: aye. aye. -- commissioner hwang: aye. president peterson: we will take up item one, public comment. if there is anyone who wishes to speak on an item which is not on tonight's calendar, please step forward. >> good evening, commissioners.

all of you should have received my e-mail-about my response to miss gethener's response to your qualifications. some of you are not qualified to into the questions before you. you do not have the qualifications. i will ask that the overhead be turned on. i would like to bring your attention to it -- i would like people to get their attention to this. this is a santa cruz news article published on-line. you may you use -- please note that you may bring a small clams action of $7,500. the planning examiners and planning staff have been found operating without certification by the state that is mandated. the judge will hear your case, and the government step can be

sued personally. this has worked quite well for the people. please contact this paralegal, no charge, to assist you. this tells me that planning department staff are not doing their job. they are not doing the job the people are hiring them to do to protect them, to uphold the codes. they can be sued and dragged into court -- sued personally. it seems that is a question that if it has taken place in santa cruz, we should be able to do that here in san francisco. thank you. president peterson: thank you. next speaker, please. sir, were you wanting to speak on public, now? any other public comment? seen none, we will move on to commissioner comments and

questions. commissioner garcia: the last time we met here was two weeks ago, and scott sanchez had just been appointed za, . that was the day they held the parade for the giants having won the world series. i think i know i speak for the whole board when i say we want to absolutely congratulate mr. sanchez on what is a very important appointment. he is well qualified. he is very knowledgeable about codes. he comes here extremely well- prepared. anyone that has watched our proceedings or met mr. sanchez knows he is obviously highly intelligent. the only thing that might be bad about his appointment is the fact that he might decide not to come here any longer and represent the planning department. i hope that does not happen. beyond congratulating him, i want to commend the planning department on what i consider to be a very, very good choice in

have been chosen him for a zoning administrator. on a less happy note, the other announcement i have is that i have to leave your early tonight. i have to attend a funeral service. my daughter in law lost her mother, lisa, mary louise stewart, and the service is tonight. i apologize if this creates trouble for anyone appear, or anyone. president peterson: thank you. mr. sanchez, we again apologize. that night was confusing, but we should have a parade in your honor as well. any other commissioner comments? any public comment on the commission of commons? seeing at non-, we will move on to item 3, the adoption of the minutes. before you for your consideration are the minutes of the board meeting of november 3, 2010.

i move to adopt the november 3, 2010 minutes. any public comment on the minutes? seeing non-, call the roll, please. >> on that motion from the president to adopt those minutes, commissioner fund. commissioner fung: aye. vice president goh: aye. commissioner garcia: aye. commissioner hwang: aye. >> item 48 is your consideration of findings to do with -- item 4a is an adoption of finding to an appeal you heard recently. it is appeal no. 10-092, up banks versus dbi. you voted to overrule in grant

the approval on the condition that the utilities be capped and maintained. these findings were drafted with your motion in mind. the parties have agreed to the findings as written. unless you have questions for them or would like to discuss the findings further, we are able to entertain a motion. vice president goh: i had a question. if they have approved this, it must be correct, but i had the impression that the tenant was female. >> there was no disagreement to the gender of the tenant. commissioner fung: i think you were right. commissioner garcia: it was a male? i thought it was a female. president peterson: may be in the findings we can have it neutral. >> the name is confusing. it is a foreign name. president peterson: i will move

to adopt the findings. is there any public comment on the findings? seeing none, please call the roll. >> the motion is to adopt with no changes. on that motion from the president to adopt those findings -- commissioner fung: aye. vice president goh: aye. commissioner garcia: aye. commissioner hwang: aye. >> the vote is 5-0 to adopt those findings. >> before we move on to the next item, i would ask ms. young if you could step forward briefly. i want to make sure if those here who need translation services understand we have the headsets available. do you have them with you? if you could make a brief announcement into the microphone that you are able to provide the service in cantonese and mandarin and how people can access the headsets, i would very much appreciate it. >> [speaking chinese]

>> if you could also announced, i apologize, that there will also be a translation service available if people would like to speak to the board, if they come up and want to speak and need it. we can provide that to them. >> [speaking chinese]

>> thank you very much. >> i just explained to them to say that anybody who needs translations in cantonese or mandarin can step forward and i will speak for them. >> thank you very much. mr. checkpachecko, when you are ready, we are ready for item 4b to be called. >> it is a jurisdiction request for subject party 3506 16th st., also known as 282 center street. it is a letter regarding an allegation of illegal commercial

activities at the subject property. the appeal ended on july 28, 2010, and the jurisdiction request was received on october 21, 2010. the subject property owner is denman drobisch. president peterson: we can hear from the request foiror first. >> my name is ali faritous. i am the agent for ike's place. can i submit a letter from the head of the office of economic and work force development? president peterson: if you want the board to consider this right now, you need to read it into the record. you would be using some of your time. we may not have a chance to read it while you're speaking. but go ahead.

>> she is also here, if the board would appreciate speaking to her or hearing from her as well. ok. i would like to start off by saying it is our position that we were not served properly. there is three different addresses that this notice has gone out to. it is my understanding that it was actually served on one of the other two addresses, and we actually received it -- the actual notice after the 15-day window. assuming that we were served properly, at the time we were involved in three different lawsuits, two of them against two pairs of tenants that were living upstairs. the main one was actually against the land for himself. all of these lawsuits basically

involved in commercial property. we were trying to settle the matter with the landlord, but the landlord was reluctant to sign off on our conditional use permit because of the fact that we were using that as leverage in the unlawful container action. we had basically a green light from the planning department, but all we needed was the owner to sign off on it. they were unwilling to do so. we were trying to work with them this whole time. that was basically the gist of what we were not able to -- why we were not able to file the action in the 15-day window. for that reason, i strongly urge the board to grant our jurisdiction request. thank you. commissioner garcia: what do you gain if we give you jurisdiction? >> what we gain is that we would properly be able to flush out the issues of what was happening

during that time. we were not allowed to even address the matter, as it were. commissioner garcia: but if the landlord is not willing to have you continue and you need the landlord, how do you ever prevail? what happens? how do we help people like you? i am not opposed to giving jurisdiction. i am just not clear on what we achieved by doing so. >> i believe that if we were able to appeal, i think the issues regarding who is fined would be able to get fleshed out correctly. i do not believe that has been isolated. commissioner garcia: that would be one reason. all right. were you also, at that time were sometime in the future -- are you going to try to get this board to produce the fines that have already been assessed

against ike's? or is that not part of the some action? here is my understanding. $250 per day has been accumulating against this operation. it is within the power of this board to reduce that to $100. are you aware of that? >> yes. we would be seeking any and all sorts of reductions at that time as well. commissioner garcia: thank you. president peterson: ok, thank you. >> is there a representative here from the landlord? please step forward. >> i don't have one with me. michael what telwattell. i represent demna drnman drobic.

the use permit was a subject of the unlawful detainer from the beginning. one of the reasons mr. drobisch used the unlawful detainer is ike's place had misrepresented the use of their premises in obtaining the use permit the got. they got a use permit for a copy shop and were operating a sandwich shop where they had prepared food and cooked food and that sort of thing. the unlawful detainer was filed march 23, 2010. it had been an issue which ike's place and their attorney had been aware of since that time. there was nothing new. there was no surprise. my understanding is that bike path place attorney -- is that ike's place's attorney was aware of that at the time. the board needs to be aware of

that issue. commissioner garcia: were you through? >> yes. commissioner garcia: denam drobisch has the least and is subletting? or is he the owner? >> he is the owner. it was jerry chow who had the initial lease, and ike's place is a sublet of mr. chao. >> good afternoon, president peterson, members of the board. scott sanchez, planning department. thank you for your kind comments. i look forward to coming to appear before this board and will endeavor to continue coming here. on the matter before you, the jurisdiction request, here is a timeline of events that might help where we are and how we got here. at the end of march, we received

a complaint that ike's was operating illegally a self- service restaurant. we issued an enforcement notification at the end of april, april 21. during may, the project sponsor, i, made contact with the department, discuss possible solutions. in may, there were thinking about relocating to a new location. the submited a conditional use operation in september to try to legalize it in place. two days after that, our department staff realized the authorization form did not have the honor as authorizing it. it turned out to be the leaseholder, not the one who owned the larger commercial lease. he was subleasing it to a ikes place. the owner did not authorize a conditional use authorization. in the middle of july, july 13, we issued a notice of violation

and penalty. that does carry with it a penalty of $250 a day. this board can come upon a pill -- can, upon appeal, reduce that to no less than $100 a day. the 15 day appeal period began on july 28, 2010. during this time and august, ike's was a fairly large story. it was in "the new york times" and the newspaper. they could not get the owners authorization. when they closed in september, there were roughly 40 days when they were operating in noncompliance. at the beginning of october, october 7, we sent a reminder, and administrative reminder. it was that which triggered the jurisdiction request, the filing on the 21st. in regards to whether or not

there was proper service on that, all the notifications have been properly received by ike's place. the first notice, beginning with the enforcement notice sent out in april -- that describes the process. you are subject to penalties. you have an appeal right. and we do send certified letters out. you did receive a certified it receipt that ike's place received it on july 14. our department received this back on the 15th. commissioner fung: would you put it on the oversight -- on the overhead? >> we have the return receipt that shows it was received by ike's place, and i believe it was signed by an employee. with that, i will answer any questions. vice president goh: it is the

department's position that the 15-day period ran may 5, or something? >> it was between july 13 and july 28, the 15-day period that the permit holder could have requested appeal on the notice of violation. vice president goh: thank you. president peterson: can we try to see the signature line again? >> sure. can i have the overhead, please? that is what we had received. president peterson: thank you. >> it is my understanding ike's is now operating at a new location. i think commissioner garcia pip question of the use of the jurisdiction request -- i see nothing beyond if this board were to take jurisdiction and reduce the penalties. but i do not see how one could find it was not in violation. it was clearly in violation at the time.

>> is there any public comment on this item? seeing none, commissioners, the matter is submitted. commissioner garcia: the reason i might be willing to -- that i personally would be willing to grant jurisdiction has to do with the fact that in addition to other considerations we have a letter from the office of economic work force and development. we just got it. basically, what it says is that this operation was very popular. and when all these problems arose, they were overwhelmed with paperwork. i want to make it clear if this board were to vote for that, the very best we could do would be to reduce the fine. i do not know what the requestor wants beyond that, but if that is what they want, i would consider it reasonable.

i would consider it reasonable to entertain arguments having to do with that. president peterson: could we address reduction of fines tonight, or would you have to reschedule? >> the matter before you is simply whether you want to entertain an appeal. commissioner garcia: in the absence of any other comment, i would so move, and we will see where that goes. >> you are motioning to grant jurisdiction? commissioner garcia: yes, thank you. commissioner fung: i do have a comment, a little bit late. let it be noted that i think noticed was appropriate -- notice was appropriate. i am willing to vote with granting only as a matter of potential equity, given the fact that the fines are so great.

>> any other commissioner comments? >> on that motion from commissioner garcia? commissioner fung: aye. vice president goh: aye. president peterson: aye. commissioner hwang: aye. >> thank you. the boat is 5-0. jurisdiction is granted and a new 15-day appeal period shall be opened. president peterson: i am wondering if you have been able to confirm whether 421 is available? >> it is available. president peterson: thank you. just to let people know, we have to keep the aisles clear. if you cannot find a seat, we

have to ask you to move to the overflow room, room 421, just down the hall. if you could call ite 5m 5a, please. >> : eye toa an fived -- calling items 5a and 5b. the appellants are the cane and tutoring centers service and the chinese gospel church -- are the canaan tutoring centers service and the chinese gospel church. it is protesting the issuance on september 15 of a permit to alter a building to a medical cannabis dispensary in a former chiropractor's office. it is application no. 2009/