general plan, and grassroots has run a successful mcd in the polk street corridor for over five years. i am available for questions. thank you very much. commissioner moore: -- president olague: thank you, a project sponsor? >> good afternoon, commissioners. grass roots has taken steps to address all the concerns raised by this commission. we worked with planning to further check the neighborhood in a sure there were no restrictive uses or conflicting uses, and we looked specifically and generally at the businesses that were identified by this commission at the hearing. we determined that with mr. crawford there was no conflicting uses in existence. we also met with the director to learn about their service and program, it goes ourselves and our business to them. after a nice, informative

meeting with the director, she indicated she did not see any conflict with us being there and did not oppose our project. we also met with the supervises legislative aides at a meeting. there was no opposition present at the meeting. we toward our facility to discuss their plans in detail. supervisor came to not indicate they would oppose our project in any way. we spoke with supervisor ross mirkarimi about the product and clustering issue. after looking at our project, he did not see any problems with clustering and he supports our product. finally, we met with the hotel developers next door, the adjacent property. i am glad to say that we reached agreement with them after having a sit down. we agreed we would take steps so we would not jeopardize their financing, and we would help them in their construction by leasing are back parking lot to them for the placement of their crane during the construction project. other objects.

other items of interest, grass roots has decided to move forward with unionizing our workers. it will be the first dispensary in sunset francisco -- it will be the first dispensary and san francisco to have unionized workers. and we also intend to explore the possibility of leasing out the 25 _ foot space immediately adjacent to ours -- 2500 sq. ft. space immediately adjacent to ours. if you have any other questions, i like to take the opportunity to answer them. president olague: not at this time, thinking. i like to open it up for public comment. we're going to limit public, at to 1 minute, as we have heard this previously. all of the answers we had have been answered by our department.

so there is always the option of signing up to show support, which we did previously, but will limit the time on the public comment. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm a special project, committee, and local court a better for the local 5. alert to bring your attention to one of the more important aspects of this very important item before you today. that is employment. $19 per hour is the starting pay for people who are going to work in this regulated industry, and it will tap out at $45 per hour. keep in mind, $19 per hour is about 80% higher than the minimum wage requirement in san francisco. in addition, please keep in mind that medical cannabis is an industry that needs regulation, and the local 5 will bring

regulation to the industry and san francisco. there will be law enforcement, regulation and terms of what could be done, what needs to be done in terms of what happens in the housing of all of the medical dispensaries. president olague: thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for allowing me to say a couple things in opposition to having this dispenser rate in the middle -- of having this dispensary in the middle of mission street. i own a building a couple doors from the proposed, and i have a couple points to make. one, there was no notice on the proposed location for a meeting like this.

i had to call mr. crawford a few times, and then finally yesterday he told me about the time of this meeting. we have submitted to mr. crawford, and i hope all of you have this petition objecting to this store, signed by many of the business owners, employees, and property owners on that block. president olague: thank you, sir. >> yes, this is a 1-way street. president olague: we may ask you for additional questioning. secretary avery: sir, your time is up, and the commission may call you back. >> hello. my name is brianj

i am at a workers' resource center. we all well known for our 30- year history serving the employment law and human rights needs of the working poor and san francisco and also from the national labor community summit that we organize it regularly in san francisco. we have bent out reaching and monitoring the medical cannabis in the street in san francisco. we are very pleased about the jobs and the economy and the revenue bringing it to the city. we are particularly pleased with grass roots. they have shown particular interest in the community affairs and supporting the community, and we are big supporters of the regulation, the taxing, and the revenue that this new emerging legal industry is bringing to san francisco and the state of california. on behalf of our community-based organization, i would like to

support the grass roots dispensary. president olague: thank you. is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public, disclosed. commissioner miguel? commissioner moore: -- vice president miguel: out like to commend the project sponsor, getting together with the hotel owners, the projected hotel owners next door and working with them. and of course, as well as their negotiations regarding the labor contract. looking this over, viewing it in light of the very detailed comments that were made regarding the medical cannabis dispensary at the other end of mission street last week, i see no great differences in the objections that have come up or the legal requirements and solutions that have occurred.

i think they're very analogous, and i would move to take the art and approve with conditions. commissioner antonini: i would like to ask the gentleman who is representing property owners and the area, if he could come forward and answer questions. i know the, time was short and any more detail on what the objections of the neighbors and neighboring property owners were to this mcd. >> the objections are the following. right across the street from the proposed location, there is an apartment building that has 116 units. many of the residence there have young kids, teenagers, so forth and so on. those young people go to

school, they come back, take the bus. and they get off the bus and go across the street to that apartment building. i went and i met with recreation on sixth street. mr. crawford told me this does not apply because they have programs for other students. we want only the creation, the establishment for young teenagers. now, i talk to them, the director of this, yesterday. i met with him a couple weeks ago, and they have to programs for teens, one from 2:00 until 6:00 in the evening, and

saturday from 10:00 until 2:00. are we going to expose our teenagers to marijuana? why don't we take what san jose has been going through now? they have been giving licenses, and now they cannot control it. i just drove by two places on mission street between 8:00 and at 9:00, and they sell marijuana, they are licensed, everything is fine. why do we need another three blocks away from that place? commissioner antonini: thank you, sir, that answers my questions. >> i have many other notes. if you look at the petition we submit it to you and the letters that came from some of the business owners and employees in that area, it is a disaster. thank you very much. commissioner antonini: i

understand you are saying there is a business center that deals with young adults under 18 across the street? that is what you are saying? >> yes. commissioner antonini: okay, thank you, sir. maybe i could ask staff some questions. it staff, i think we went over the exhaustive list of the various programs and why they did not comply. did you take into consideration the particular one? >> yes, the one he is speaking of at sixth street is the behania community center. they have programs for youth. they have programs for people of all ages. they're not primarily serving persons under 18 years of age, and that is the criteria. commissioner antonini: okay, thank you, mr. crawford. i just have a few thoughts. the all the different installations we have approved,

this is probably one of the best organized and best run. unfortunately, we are a little bound as the commission by what the supervisors has set as a criteria. that does not include clustering, although most everything else we take into consideration clustering of liquor stores, formula retail, clustering of almost anything. it seems sort of the inconsistent we do not consider clustering on these, although we're not supposed to do that. i did a look at the map. between the streets, this will be the 11th medical cannabis dispensary. that is quite a few in the small area. i realize balls are such that there are places where the could be placed or cited, -- i realize

there are laws where they could be placed or cited, but there is such a huge demand for medical cannabis in such a small area that we need so many of these. again, while this is probably one of the better ones, it is like the ones who are their first get approval. i would be in favor of getting rid of some of the others that are not operating as well as some of the other proper operations as this is. some of the early ones were approved to allow smoking on site. some of the things that we do not usually allow. i am a little reticent to approve another one until we find a way to get rid of some of the ones that are problem. but i don't think that is within our tool kit right now. president olague: commissioner moore? commissioner moore: i think we

consider the existing rules. we cannot challenge that might require reconsideration. some of the supervisors, i think they are all aware of our questions. however, this particular project, with the guidance of supervisor kim, met all of the remaining questions. i think there responded well to the challenge to for their reach out, including we are well aware that all the notification was done to the neighbors in a timely manner. many of them showed up last week. i think you for sticking with us but to elevate this to the approval project. i support commissioner miguel's motion for approval. commissioner sugaya: i think if the commission feels that clustering and other possible effects or whatever from approving these dispensaries is

a huge issue, then i think we need to be more aggressive with the board of supervisors. you have to realize that one of the main reasons, i think, that clustering happens is because of the with the current legislation has been set up. and that is because it cannot be within 1,000 feet of certain kinds of institutional establishments. if you place that on the map, which the department has, there are not a lot of places that you could locate a marijuana dispensary. so what happens, i think, the people who want to legitimately start one that start to look at locations, and based on the criteria that has been established, you do end up in the downtown area along polk street and the locations we're finding applications coming to was located in.

we had one case where there was say whole available in the sunset, and was an application available for that that commission approved, but that was overturned at the board of appeals. but that was one of the few areas on the west side of town that a dispensary even could apply for. anyway, i think that if we are concerned about it, we need to be more aggressive through staff to the board. president olague: i know that it came out before. commissioner fong raised it. maybe we could draft an official request. could we do so, requesting, i don't know, that the board of supervisors look at these different issues? and to reconsider? i am not sure how we would phrase it or draft it, but we

need to put forth an official request instead of just babbling among ourselves, hoping somehow the message gets to the second floor. we have long supported this issue. i think there have only been two dispensaries we have denied. the first one, and then the 1 and north beach. i think the first one was unanimous, but the second was not. given the current rules, we fully support, i also think there is a lot of misinformation, misunderstanding, and still a lot of fear around medical cannabis dispensary is, when really it is a medical use and people have to have certain prescriptions. they need a prescription in order to even enter that placed.

in this situation, no smoking is even allowed on site, i don't believe. there are some places where it is, there are some places where it is not. i don't think we have any conclusive research that indicates there is a connection between medical cannabis dispensary and in increase -- i will be careful in saying this, medical cannabis amongst youth or anyone else who happens to occupy the dispensary or happens to be adjacent to it. i think there is still a lot of things. i am glad you are using this opportunity to educate. you met with the people in shock. they serve as a lot of younger women, i believe, and they became more educated about this. i know i heard it through the supervisor's office that the

director of the miami hub has had concerns -- have not had any concerns either, and they serve youth and seniors. i think there is still a lot of education that needs to be done among the public. since we have been hearing so many more concerns, i know you were at the beginning of the discussion i don't know how many years ago. i don't know, a long time ago. maybe at some point you could be part of reopening and reconsidering and discussing these things out. but i think we will figure out a way to draft a letter to the board, requesting that they start to kind of assess where we are, where we're going in regards to this issue. so i support this, also. and i think the conversation that occurred after this, even though it is a painful process, i think led to a lot of positive results. so thank you for that.

mr. sanchez? >> i think the commission has highlighted the current issues and requirements of mcd's. the legislation was developed in 2005. it may be time to revisit the location requirements. this is a discretionary review. the commission has a broad amount of discretion and authority to approve or deny or make amendments to the application. that is what happened with the case in the sunset, that this commission found it was appropriate and acceptable. the board of appeals disagreed and denied on those grounds, because they took no account their discretionary authority what they saw as the impact on the neighborhood to deny their application. president olague: is it not primary and secondary schools? so it does it include some youth facilities. >> it is primary and secondary

educational schools, as well as community centers, recreation centers primarily devoted to use. -- to youth. president olague: yeah, i don't know of any around there, at work across the street, actually. i'd like to thank supervisor kim's office. they have been extremely helpful and facilitating these conversations. commissioner antonini? commissioner antonini: i just want to mention that my comments and vote will not be reflective of -- this group has done things the way they should be done. however, the clustering as a concern for me and could have a depressing effect on other development in the area, although this will be a big improvement over what is there, certainly, but the fact there are so many mcd's in a small area, there is something wrong

there. i think there are other reasons other than the fact that there are areas that are limited. commissioner sugaya: lastly for me, i don't speak for all the commissioners, but from my perspective what i was trying to communicate with the board of supervisors was not my intent to say, at least myself, looking for any additional restrictions, so to speak. president olague: right, i am not looking for restrictions. commissioner sugaya: it is more to support the idea of medical cannabis in the community. i think it is just the way that the rules are set up, we need clarification and direction and possibly some changes as to the way it is set up. president olague: yeah, like you, i am not looking for more restrictions. secretary avery: on the motion

to take discretionary review -- [roll-call vote] secretary avery: that motion passes six-one, with commissioner antonini voting against. [applause] secretary avery: want to take a minute to let them clear it out? minute to let them clear it out? president olague: sure, 5 minute >> we had a gentleman, up and speak for a request for a continuance -- come up and speak for a request for a continuance. commissioners, at this point, i

would ask to take up the matter of continuous before considering the on item. president olague: is there any public comment on the matter of continuance? >> good afternoon, commissioners. we are hoping to come back with a design that could be somewhat improved, and the property owner has had family issues. they have spoken to the dr request for the continuance, just getting some changes made. president olague: is there a date that would work? >> if we could get a time in july -- president olague: not until september, correct? >> yes. >> we will take the first available. president olague: i want to hear

from me dr request your -- requester. >> i am david grouper, one of the neighbors that is part of this project. this has been all long, strange road for us. it started many years ago. there have been transformations in the ownership, the partnerships, what ever, but we lucked out throughout the process. the original permit expired. then it was renewed. we are hoping that by accepting and going forward with an extension that we will be included -- but that includes staff, too, so we can fully

understand and work with this process. we think this is something be planning commission should decide -- the planning commission should decide. president olague: you are one of the neighbors, so you are one of the dr requesters. >> yes. it was done through our counsel, steve williams, but things got expensive. we're trying to hold it down a little bit. president olague: we are looking to schedule this for the first available date in september. would that be ok for you? >> yes. president olague: thank you. is there any additional comment on this item? no? public comment is closed. commissioner miguel? commissioner miguel: yes, i

would recommend to continue this to what date in september? >> september 15. >> yes, i second, and i would like to have the project sponsor and the dr requesters, if you are able to get together at any point. there is plenty of time. mr. paul has been here more often than -- he has a longstanding, i think understanding of the planning process and the things that the commission is looking for, and i would encourage the project sponsor -- who i do not think is here. is that correct? and to watch the tape or something, or maybe staff can communicate in their -- in that

regard. president olague: ms. avery- herbert, do we have a date? >> september 15. commissioners, on the motion of continuance for this item to september 15, up on that motion -- [roll-call vote] thank you, commissioners. as the project is continued until september 15. commissioners, you are now on item number 11, cases for 14 costa street.

>> good afternoon, commissioners. the project involves a single family dwelling over a two-story garage. it is important to note the building has already been demolished by the previous owner. the current owner and the project sponsor has been working diligently with the planning department to seek approval. the project has received approval and recommendation for approval that is consistent with the general plan policy. the design is compatible with the existing neighborhood. president olague: thank you. project sponsor? it is up to you. if you want to present, you can. we can call you back up if we