particular area and adding to this, i think what we're beginning to see is that even as a business, well financed formula retail, i mean we're making it harder and harder and harder for low income businesses to come into certain areas. so in effect, it's a subtle red lining and i think that we really need to take a cautionary note of such things as how they overlay and i would like to see this in the economic analysis as to how this type of fee will affect a business in relationship to all of the other fees that they have that are unique to the particular area that they're in, that's in this area. so i just, i think that while i think we think it's well intentioned and well good, but

also london is an extraordinary expensive area to live in. the one where the congestion pricing area is one of the most expensive. some of the impetus was in protecting the art that was there, that was being corroded by the diesel emissions. we don't necessarily have quite that in san francisco. so i mean, while i think in the economic analysis, we have to take a look at what is going to be the forecast in 10, 15 years in terms of who can afford and live i terms of who can afford and live in these particularly vulnerable areas. thank you for your feedback. president riley: anything else? >> one last comment. the exceptions with you have, or

the exception list, is very small right now. the thing that will probably have to be widened a little bit. people who as part of their trade commute across the city -- i just do not think they should be all of a sudden subject to this new tax, if we want to call it that, or whatever. i would rather see it directed to people who were getting into their car on a whim because they can afford to do so, or whatever. but people who are doing what they are doing because it is essential and should not be subjected to this, in my opinion. that is to the comment i would make. >> thank you. you have heard public comment. you have heard all of our concerns. thank you for your presentation. we will continue to work with you. you have heard our request to outreach to all the merchant associations as well as the

business organizations. if you need help to get a contact, i believe our director can help you. >> i would like to take advantage for that. i appreciate your feedback. >> commissioners, you made a number of comments regarding things like economic analysis, putting emphasis on that. are we going to provide any comments to that affect, or are we going to just take this as informational and be involved in moving forward? >> it is up to you whether you want step to crack -- to draft formal comments, or the transportation authority, the authority board. >> let us go ahead and do that. >> the primary concerns i heard in terms of taking into

consideration this initial step would be in the next phase to put emphasis on economic analysis in terms of particularly small businesses. president riley: and i think commissioner o'brien had a good point in terms of the list of exceptions. commissioner o'connor: we are not assuming there is going to be a second phase study, if there is. >> ok. president riley: thank you. >> item 8 presentation by a member of the barbary coast conservancy and the center for the beverage arts. the barbary coast conservancy of the american cocktail, presenter a san francisco cocktail week,

preserve the cultural heritage of saloons and the cocktail in the bay area also breaking california's culinary philosophy and tradition with special events, publications, and educational seminars. president riley: welcome. >> [no audio[inaudible] what we have done so far and what we exist to do. i only elixir saloon in san francisco come here in the mission district. my partners own part of cantina and comstock saloon and the absence room -- absynth room. we came together for years ago to create san francisco

cocktail week. we have run that successfully for the last four years as a weeklong event to focus on the fact that the san francisco cocteau community and its history and culture are not only vibrant and strong today, but historically significant to the culinary culture of the city. we basically took our success in the last few years and kept it going by creating a nonprofit in order to run it and to get a bank account and to work with different companies across the industry in order to fund it year after year. we have become a leader in it, having created the first cocktail week. that is not emulated around the country by events such as the manhattan cocktail classic that happens in may and portland cocteau week -- portland

cocktail week that happened recently. honolulu does one. i believe boston is working on one. it is celebrating the cocktail culture. the evolution of cocktails in the last five to seven years or so, maybe as far as 10, has been quite rapid, and has fueled a big burst in small business evolution in the bar industry, and also the evolution of the bar portion of the restaurant industry. we have also worked with the golden gate restaurant association and sf chefs in the past few years. will we wanted to do was to engage the public in another arena outside of our bars, a non-commercial environment where we could educate sentences about the deep history we have the goes back to the mid-1800's and

the saloons that evolved here. that culture, up until prohibition and through prohibition and beyond, but significantly up until prohibition -- how that impacted the cocktails and cocteau culinary culture around the world, and how we have once again brought that back and taken a lead in the world as far as the advancements we made, the drinks we make, and the spirits we work with and make in the bay area, our cooperation with the winery's -- wineries and chefs to spur a lot of business, but also cultural impact. in creating that, we took that success this year and we signed a lease and opened a beverage education and events center, which recall the -- which recall

the -- which we call the boothby center for the beverage arts. he was a saloonkeeper and an assemblyman in the 1800's and wrote the first published cocktail book, the bartender's guide, back in that time. we take stories like that and many more, stories like my saloon, elixir, which is the second oldest continually operating a saloon location in the city, since 1858, or the house of shields, which is reopening this week. the comstock saloon has been brought back to being a saloon. those kind of things plus the characters involved in the drugs involved, in gauging the public. -- the characters involved and the drinks involved, engaging the public. we want events not just during

cocktail week. as an entrepreneur and the owner of the elixir for the last seven years, i started thinking it was also a good way for us to start stepping forward and working with the city government in order to engage them in the conversation as well. we could make more connections between the entrepreneurs that really drive this forward and drive a lot of revenue for the city, a lot of tax revenue, and connecting with our chefs and the evolution of the culture there. if you have not noticed, in the last year or two there have been an amazing amount of new bars and restaurants that have been opening and not closing. i am not a statistician or a politician. i am an entrepreneur working to open my second car and to consult with my clients on growing their businesses.

i just want to do what i can to bring the conservancy into an involvement with the government, where we can help more entrepreneurs to create more bars and restaurants, create more beverage products, and do more on an entrepreneurial level. i just wanted to get out here today to introduce the conservancy and see if there are ways we can work together in your efforts that i have been hearing about streamlining the processes of starting businesses and starting bars and restaurants in particular. we discussed a couple of times -- regina and i met and spoke. i did not have a whole lot today. i had a number of significant bullet points -- mostly to introduce myself and see where we can go from here.

president riley: thank you. commissioner kasselman: when is the barbary coast conservancy cocktail week? >> san francisco cocktail week. it is around the third week of september. we have not set a date this year. this past year, we did it the 21st or 22nd. it started around may 13, which the museum of the american cocktail in new orleans promoted in 2006. may 13 was world cocktail buffet, the 200th anniversary of the first publication of the word cocteau. the reached out to jeff, duncan, and myself, and people in san francisco and around the country

to try to throw events to celebrate that. we said why just do one event on monday -- let's create an entire week ending date republic in seminars, cocktail parties -- we said why just do one event on one day. let's create an entire week including seminars, cocktail parties, and all kinds of things. as other cities started developing cocktail weeks, almost in competition with us, we started to realize it made more sense for us to move our week to september, when we had better weather, more produce rolling through the streets, and are not in competition with anybody else nationally. we can help bring more business to the city from around the country. commissioner kasselman: how are

you marketing the event? >> it has been very word of mouth. we are a volunteer-run organization. the first year, jeff, doug, and i funded out of pocket. the second year, we went to spirit companies and raised sponsorship money, and sold tickets to various events. the third year, we raised more. we continue to go to beverage- related companies as sponsors for the events. now that we have the boothby center open, we are looking to reach out to other businesses in san francisco to fund us by using the center and providing a space where they can come, have fun. we have started doing cocktail classes and have already been doing corporate team building mixology 101 classes for google, facebook, mckessen, volvo, and

a number of companies. we are trying to reach out to not beverage companies as well to broaden the spectrum and get them to understand what the conservancy is, as well as cocktail week. our hope is that by reaching out throughout the year in these kinds of events, we can get more people involved in cocktail week, which would also become a bigger event and get bigger and bigger every year. commissioner kasselman: can you tell me about hours of operation? how would someone is a you can find out about you? -- how would someone to visit you -- someone visit you or find out about you? >> we are an event space and we are trying to create our own defense. we do have sfcocktailweek.com, a site we have used for past events. you can look at that and see

everything that happened this year. we have not been able to update that yet. a volunteer bartender wrote that site. we also own barbarycoastconservancy.com, but have not had the money to build that web site yet. we have a facebook page to communicate. we have a database of 500 subscribers for e-mail communications. we do not have any salaried people are paid people. right now, we are just building slowly and slowly. besides my bar, i have a consulting business. each one of us has a number of ventures. commissioner kasselman: as a person who is in the industry as well, i remember the first cocktail week. it was a great success. it was definitely -- it definitely generated more business and foot traffic across the noted bars in the city. anytime we have a meeting that

attracts hundreds of people, it does have an impact -- a direct and significant economic impact on the businesses that get this foot traffic. i want to thank you as a member of the industry for that, and also for upgrading -- raising the profile of cocktails. i am also very interested as a member of the industry in responsible sales and service, and always keeping irresponsible sales and service model. when the adult come out to drink, it is a lot more fun than the rioting. i would just ask you to make sure that in the city, were responsible sales and services is a tremendous issue -- where are responsible sales and services is a tremendous -- where responsible sales and

services is a tremendous issue, that is part of your training when it comes to interacting with other businesses in the district, being assured that we have responsible operators. >> these are things we talk about a lot, but we are not teaching anything like that. we are a public-facing nonprofit 501c3. we are not a trade organization. i am a national embassador of the united states bartender's killed. i was former vice president of the san francisco chapter. through them, we definitely approach those things because that is a trade organization. we talk about sales, storage chip, and service. but the barbary coast conservancy is more about bringing the industry people to the table to voluntarily educate the public about things like responsible drinking more so

than responsible service. we already tried to practice that on that side. the conservancy is more about getting everybody together and teaching them what the difference between rye whiskey and vodka is and how you would mix that, more of the culinary and cultural appreciation of beverages. i think on that level, our message is very much on immature and developed -- on a mature and develop stage. we do not develop shot in beer specials and street parties. i guess we do develop parties, but it is about more of immature message about appreciation and responsibility -- more of a mature message about appreciation and responsibility. >> i appreciate that level of awareness and education. the young learn by following -- >> exactly. that is the kind of message.

the state of today's cocktail culture is at the same level as our food. i do work just like the top shops in the country. i get flown around the country to speak and perform and present, to teach about cocktails', beverages, and spirits, very much the same wish of stew. so do my colleagues. among those levels, we want people to understand that the cocktail holds this place on the same stage as wine, coffee, and beer, and tea and other non- alcohol drinks, as food, as farmers, as the other players in our culinary culture around the bay area. i guess the ultimate goal of making you aware of what we do here is so we can engage each other in the processes involved -- the business processes involved in our industry.

we want to be able to help as a conduit for the better, more successful supply of entrepreneurs in the bar and restaurant business around the city in order to grow that. our whole thing was not so elixir could get better. it was so san francisco could get better, so simple siskins could support what we were passionate about on the broader level. that is what i wanted to get word out to the city government about who we are and that we exist. we now have a home and are going to be working diligently towards our fifth anniversary this coming september as the biggest san francisco cocktail week yet. we hope the city will embrace that and help make it bigger.

we plan to work with the city and the golden gate restaurant association. the golden gate ships will focus on the food. the craft brewers association will focus on beer week. the vintners and everybody else -- we are trying to tie it all together to make more business happen. commissioner o'brien: maybe this is off the beaten track a little bit, but just from the point of view of us being a small business commission and constantly trying to make the city an easier place to do business in, what do you think is the situation with trying to set up a new bar or saloon type of business in san francisco as far as the process of pyramiding and stuff like that? i am curious to get an answer from somebody i have never met

before who might be able to give it to me from the trenches. i was just curious to know. >> i was excited to hear the city was working with the mayor's office to try to bring all of those offices together to make the permiting and that entire step-by-step process easier. when i did it seven years ago, it certainly was not easy. i had multiple points to look to to try to figure everything out. one office did not know what the other office needed, or that other offices existed. that was difficult and i had an m.b.a. commissioner o'brien: that probably made it harder for you. you were looking for rational logic and common sense. [laughter] >> probably. i also have to say when i started my bar i had been in the business over 20 years, on and

off. then i went out and did my mba and came back thinking -- very much bucking my mba mentality to say i was going to start a bar, a small business. it is not what i thought i would do during the prior years. i also arrogantly thought i could do it quicker and easier than anybody because i had the money and the education and more experienced outside of the industry, and had worked in silicon valley and around the world. it still took me the average 3.5 years to turn a profit. i still struggled with every bit of difficult pump in the road that the city and the economy through my way. i still feel this is a very difficult city to do business in, a very difficult city to make money in. as i look to my next venture, i have to say i am looking at oakland. i am considering some stuff in

san francisco, but i am looking in oakland where things are cheaper. i am looking at san diego. i am looking at reno. those are mostly driven by the fact that it is too expensive to do business in the city and try to make a profit, and i am in year seven. thankfully, i am alive and in year seven. i have turned this into one of the top bars in northern california. but if i did not, i know plenty of people are just kicking along. commissioner o'brien: would that be -- i am sure one of the reasons you make that statement would be because rent is so expensive in san francisco. >> my rent is not bad because of fortunately took advantage of the sba 504 program and on my property. that is a rare and random situation to be able to fund a bar where the property was for sale as well. commissioner o'brien: it is

great and interesting to hear that. what would be the things that we have control over that we could do to make it cheaper to do business in san francisco? >> well, i think the tipping exception on wage expenses, comparatively speaking across the industry, is a big blow to the industry here. the non-tip exemption on minimum wage on tipped employees, the health-care expenses. i would say since i opened, workers' comp has gotten better. workers' comp was a bare seven years ago. it has definitely gotten better. those are some of the things, again -- i am about to go back into this process. there is a chance that i will open again in san francisco.

when i do, i will have to go through this process again. that would be a better time for me to engage you on that level. commissioner o'brien: i would really like to hear that -- hear how that goes. >> after seven years, i look back and i say that i pay my taxes and try to avoid the government as much as possible. and things roll along in my business pretty good. i have learned other lessons that are obstacles to making money, too. >> i just wanted to say we had a great meeting, a great conversation. we met shortly after the veto for the alcohol recovery fee. i think. i wanted to make sure the commission was aware that when we went through the alcohol recovery fee, we talked a lot about, in our comments, the

impact to our arsenal -- parties and all -- artisanal breweries. this again raises a profile to a culture, an element that really assist our economy. these are a lot of small businesses who are engaged in the artisanal spirits. i definitely want for our office to be able to provide support in ways that we can, and for the commission not to know about it. >> i just want to add that in the coming year one of the things we will be focusing on as a commission is the differential between the cost of operating in san francisco versus the surrounding jurisdictions. it is of great concern, the cost

-- the cpi increases to all of the labor costs. at what point -- how far will that differential go, and at what point should tips be considered as part of wages? you know just the west coast states are the only states in the nation that do not have an allowance, a tip credit of any kind in the minimum wage ordinances. we will be as a commission examining that. >> those are things i definitely would keep an eye on. health care -- i have 12 employees. if i want to open another bar, i am going to have to create an entire new company just to avoid the expense that is crushing so many restaurants in having to pay for that health care. >> and that is not the intent