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tv   [untitled]    December 18, 2011 11:31am-12:01pm PST

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appeal number 6-g. i intend to have my clients the as well so i will keep its grief. i have also over 600 petitions of signatures of people who believe that we do not need the additional vitality of these trucks in the financial district. you will see that there are even more signatures for that. we are here today to try to prevent devastating impact to small-business restaurant owners. it is going to be, even the six months that has been talked about could put these businesses out of business. it is a devastating impact to have your competition, who has much less cost and expenses, hard right in front of you. you can see that from the very
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buildings. to apply for dpw, it is staggering to me how they can propose these things. they have said that even though it is cornyn out that the parking or they are talking about doing it, these trucks would violate parking regulations, because there is only one-hour parking allowed and loading and unloading and yellowstone's defined as active as faces, that dpt will regulate that a. why can they approve a permit that they already know is in violation? how can you approve a permit that they already know is in violation of a code of san francisco? with regard to the restaurant requirement that is required under state law to be within 2 1/3 feet of the location. they say that dph will regulate that.
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you cannot keep approving permits in the hopes that some other -- what kind of enforcement is that? does that require the appellant to go to every agency and say to them, they do not have these permits. they cannot park there. how is that going to be working? that should not have to happen. there are others who will speak about the economic impacts about these things. in one of the points i want to make is that we are not against food trucks. these businesses can locate and have submitted permits for other locations in san francisco. that is fine. the financial district does not need new vitality of food trucks down there. my office is in the financial district. i am walking down the streets and we do not need additional activity there. i want to point out -- i am here opposing beals street and
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california street, those two locations. beale street, besides the violations that exist, just a pragmatic look at the existing conditions, you will see reported four construction activities on the street. there is construction activity proposed until december 2014. permits being allowed for that. this is also the block that goes directly to the transit terminals. where buses and everything else goes every day. one of the locations are want to point out -- i think this is a classic picture. in right behind where this man is standing in the street is where the truck is supposed to be located. this car is already double parking because of the conditions that exist today under the credit situation we are in today. it requires the dow director to
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take responsibility seriously in doing this discretion. i want to point out that i do not want to blame the director of dpw for this a particularly, because this is a burden he has been dealing with and how this is going to be implemented. how this is going to work in the future for severance is go. it is an enormous task. the applications we have seen already -- an average of seven locations for every permit. that is 120 permits. this is crazy. to do this right, it requires a lot of attention. it does not require this kind of attention from downtown. the downtown financial district is not the place to do this. i'm going to leave some time,
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probably nine minutes for my two clients for the two matters. >> you said you represent two clients? you each have about 4.5 minutes each. keep that in mind. you start at 9 and i -- and at about 4.5, you should be done. >> i am the owner of the subway restaurant and also the 7-11. for myself and my fellow briton and more restaurant owners, i ask you to decide what is right and what is wrong in realistic terms. as the livelihood of people like
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me may be impacted by this decision. i am one of the 32 restaurant owners operating within walking distance from the location. i am referring to 50 telephone -- 50 california st.. we are fully rested in san francisco and has contributed our fair share to revenues. we have numerous employees who are dependent upon our businesses. the city of san francisco is attempting to cannibalize the existing businesses by permitting more of these food trucks to operate with miniscule overheads in comparison to us. yet with complete freedom to cut into our customer base. if this permit or any such permit is issued in the area of the financial district, it will breach of the basic standard of
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fairness. this is not what free enterprise stands for, ladies and gentlemen. the principles of free enterprise that our mission -- that our nation is built on do not permit blatant promotion of one section of the economy at the cost of another. i am baffled that all this is being attempted. my question is, is the city of san francisco willing to agree the basic standards of fair play and free enterprise? the city has not conducted any surveys to assess the impact the facility would have on the existing businesses, especially in already saturated areas. it is improper to conduct any business without considering
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all of the impact it would have on any endeavor. our customers feel our pain. we have collected 1144 signatures from our customers on a general petition. against permitting food trucks in the financial districts. these many signatures were collected in a matter of six days with only six restaurant owners participating in the exercise. i am confident that, if necessary, we will collect enough signatures to put this matter on the ballot for the next election. the impact of this entire exercise is so huge on our livelihood. neither the applicant nor any city official can stand here and
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state that a mobil facility such as this will not impact any existing business. they cannot say that. i stand here and caution the rationale behind permitting mobile facilities in already populated areas, such as this one. and in an ailing economy. thank you very much. >> there is five minutes left. >> hello there. i am the owner of the restaurant -- i am the owner of the portico restaurant. i am speaking on behalf of our restaurant and four other restaurants on the street.
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there are five other restaurants on one block. we are asking the board of appeals to rescind the dpw approval of permit number 11mff027 for 61 beale to be rescinded back. we believe the city of san francisco did not conduct sufficient studies on the environmental impact and the economic impact on existing restaurants. as is, the city ordinance for food trucks to operate in san francisco is unfair and is one- sided, only to benefit the operators and investors behind them. we would like to ask the board of appeals to ask the board of supervisors to limit this ordinance and have the existing restaurants represented to be
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part of the decision making. their lives are at stake here. 14 years ago, we built portico. we signed the lease and committed a significant amount of investor money. we come before you 14 years later trying to beg for our life. the city is permitted this food truck to park at 61 beale. it is not only that one. there is another one and they will take up five days per week. i would like to show you the income and expenses that they have projected.
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v.k. industries wants to part certain days of the week on jbeil street. -- on beale st. each one says they're going to make $2,000 per day. $250,000 per year there would be taking out of this restaurant located on beale st. that is a lot of money. they talk about creating new sales tax. we are the generate that. we have been there for 14 years. we already generate sales tax for them. they talk about hiring new employees. we have to lay off employees.
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it is not only these two. i have in my hand 189 permits that are in the works that are in front of dpw or have been already given permits. three or four of them are going to be at 33 market street and beale. that is bombay cafe. dog city. kababistan. they are all going to park right there. there are about six or seven. it is amazing the amount of money that will be taken out of the restaurants right there. if we look at the gross sales that they are going to do an apply all of the expenses that we incur and pass it on to them, the same expenses, if you look at it, if they make
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$520,000.72% our expenses, that is 28% net income before taxes. under $520,000 is $145,000. in five days, one truck can take -- we take $900,000 in sales but only 10%, $90,000. we are asking the city, we are asking you, ladies and gentlemen, to please ask the city supervisors to revisit this. thank you very much. >> thank you. 11-107.
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>> good afternoon. i have been involved in this area since i was a child. i am a native san franciscan. my father was involved in this. maybe old-timer is no him. he was pretty well-known. there are a number of points. the big issue in this country is jobs. the brief and mortar -- it takes a lot of people to run a brick and mortar restaurant.
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our client has hired a lot of people to get it started. a food truck takes one or two people. eight-hour shifts plus health care. there would be no regulation of health care for these people. where are their bathrooms? they make you have a man's and woman's ada bathroom in the brick and mortar restaurants. you have to service them and clean them. you have to provide a number of things for the public. they do not provide anything for the public. san francisco downtown has a bad reputation for being dirty on the streets. i will give dpw credit. in our area, they have tried to beef it up. a lot of trash in the area and this will just cause more trash.
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and it will hurt business. there was a one-day trial just one block away. on that day, i think they had six or eight food trucks. not one business on the street did any business at all. everybody was dead. that proves it right there. that proves it and it kills the business. do you want to kill the brick and mortar restaurants? do you want to have employees, young people try to get a start in the city? do you want to have them thrown out of their jobs? do you want to have union construction people? no one is going to want to put a restaurant in. there will not put a casual place in when you are going to have a food it truck in the front. you are hurting the unions, you are hurting the young people, you are killing the district.
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i think this whole program -- i am not saying some places, i see food trucks in some of the outlying areas and maybe it is a good idea, but where you have restaurant after restaurant struggling, imploring people, providing bathrooms, providing this, providing that, and you want to kill the whole area. you are going to have vacancies and vacancies draw people, bums. you are going to have a third world area because you're going to run it into the ground and you're going to put businesses out of business. you are going to put young people losing opportunities, it is kind of a cult thing to get into the food industry for young people. you are going to stop that. they're not going to work on food trucks.
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if you are going to kill union construction jobs. in the financial area, this is the most ill thought out, stupid thing i have heard of in my life. thank you. >> can we hear now from the appellant for 11-108? >> good evening. my name is muna azzghayer. i would like to start off and say that my family are one of the original food services on drumm st. my father opened drumm liquor and deli and each of our locations are at 15, 21, and 91 drumm st.
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all three businesses are located within the 300-foot radius i am asking the city to overturn the decision on the premise of like-foods. the mobile foods facility is not supposed to compete with existing restaurants, but that is exactly what is happening with the k industries and others being put in close proximity. the foot traffic we so desperately need for rent. placing the food trucks and un- finalized areas, there are 32 quick-service restaurants in the one-block radius.
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and the beautiful ferry building. the city did a great job. it is a great place to get quick food. i have approximately 600 square feet with the majority go into a full-service kitchen and a city in mandated bathroom. with 200 square feet of street frontage, i have no room for receding. i am protesting the industry's food truck because it will have a negative impact on my restaurant kitchen and opened 12 years ago. we are a healthy, quick service restaurants. my menu consists of the to-go vegetarian selections and many meat and vegetable plates. it is important of that
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mediterranean and indian food use many of the same spices and share the same flavor profiles. while many of the foods have different things, the components are the same. they plan to sell chicken wraps, like our rolls. their veggie plate looks like our mediterranean play. -- plate. >> so nervous. other way?
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still? as you can see, these are wraps. what they have chosen to sell
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will directly target my customer base. it is like food verses like food. if we are to follow the guidelines of the city ordinance, in states that lie cushaw take into consideration the ethnicity of the food and composition of each menu as well as other issues that the officer deems appropriate to determine whether conflict of food aid exists. i will skip over the coffee cart. it could adversely -- that is where the industry in fringes of my concept. the truck is going to serve the same kind of vegetarian plates has oasis. they are indeed like food, so i urge the hon. members of the board to revoke the permit. it would be a hard few years to
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-- it has been a hard few years for everyone. food truck advocates have been leaving out the important facts. the high-rises are double. they can hold a double the capacity of the high-rises, there are way more people there. another important fact is that york city is the city that never sleeps. it can be a ghost town after 9:00. they have the nightlife there that we just don't have. many quick service restaurants closed between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. ahead it is important to realize that the san francisco financial district has limited hours and days of business.
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the productive hours are monday through friday, 10:00 to 2:00. these are the hours the food trucks have chosen to operate. there is not a chance to make up lost business or revenue. it can mean closure. i hope that you will revoke their permit. >> we can hear for appellants for a 11-111. nihois somebody here for that appeal? >> i am with skyline construction, the vice- president. we have about 80 people in the
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office, and we also served as a great deal of the high-rise buildings downtown. coming up, we will have -- i pay a hundred and $25 per permit. even though i have paid a hundred and $25 for a permit, -- i have paid $825 for a permit. it is one hour in front of the building. ask you, if you're going to let them hard for an hour and this truck parts for five hours, i have three jobs going on in the building at one time. i have 15 sub-contractors per
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job and i could have the 45 potential sub-contractors there on top of the fact that there is the center. we have a high density area in a big problem potentially coming out of this area. davis street is the only street thief and get through to south of market right now. will it is because in a huge potential problem for pedestrians. there will be a potential problem for double-parked vehicles. there'll be a problem from by companies to make a buck if we have trucks prohibiting us from doing our work. we charge a lot of money to do the work and because we pay high wages. time is money.
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and if you're going to allow these trucks to infringe upon the highest density area in the western united states, i think you're making a big mistake. it doesn't make any sense. i grew up in the city, i have lived here all my life. san francisco should take pride on the decisions like building a ballpark. allowing trucks to put other people here tonight and out of business is not a good idea for this place. putting jobs in jeopardy, as a result of an attempt for us to get a small amount of revenue, which is not worth it. it will cause big problems down the line here. that you have a truck parked, it is bkw