to be for an mcd? food is far more dangerous to kids than drugs. [laughter] >> that is one of the reasons by the working group is interested in re-reviewing this. >> thank you for your patience. go ahead and myriad >> thank you for your time to be here. i am ken cleveland with the building and managers association. i am disappointed to see the small business executives here tonight to side with one set of small businesses against another set of small businesses. i am here supporting the appellants. there are tenants in office buildings and as has since stated earlier tonight, they employ a lot of people, they have been here for many years.

and they enhance the value of the properties in the city that are paying about 20% of the entire city's budget. we have to look at the big impact here. i have to disagree with mr. paul who stated that boma was at the table. when this was passed unanimously, they were not involved. this was to bring vitality to underserved areas of the city where there are not restaurants, cafes, sandwich shops. we have a plethora of them downtown. we are not underserved in any sense of the word. if you look at the list of firms that have been applied for, over 50% of them are downtown locations. why? that is where the customers are. we had these constraints around the city of not being allowed, not allowing mobile food trucks to operate in hospitals or near hospitals and schools. that needs to be changed. we need to make some

modifications to look at density. how many are too many? right now, we are saturated downtown with mobile food permits. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen. i am the owner of the gaylord restaurant in the financial district. my restaurant is within a short distance from the subjected location. i have operated this restaurant for about 30 years and i have faced all of the economic

challenges over the years. i offer an extensive take-out menu. along with a full line of buffet lunch. i serve the same items as proposed by the applicant, an assortment of indian cuisine. i pay $12,500 in rent and employ about 15 people. employees are fully dependent and so is my family and this business. it is the only source of my income. if this permit is issued, it will directly negatively impact on my business. i ask why this injustice is done to the financial district restaurants by permitting them to operate at a fraction of my overheads. and yet, they have total freedom

to steal the customers. my sales are down 26%. compared to last year. i thank you so much for listening to me. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hi, my name is deborah sellers. i am the owner of seller's market. i operate multi-unit operations in the downtown financial district. what i want to speak about is the fact that, as of 30 days ago, we had a board meeting and we were discussing an expansion

plans to expand fresco minister of the financial district. we have located three or four locations that are on the docket for 2012. each one of those locations have available parking spots where permits are being requested. the question that we have is how do we assess their market value and what kind of business we can do their when somebody can pull up another quick service restaurants in front of us? what we have decided to do is look outside of the city at this time. we do not feel that the legislation is there yet. in order for us to understand what market value is in the marketplace in san francisco. in doing so, where we could have employed 40 or 50 falls had additional revenues come in those locations, we are going to look outside the city for expansion because there is not enough legislation and rules surrounding this in over

populated areas. the mobile food trucks, the entire intent, as i understand from the golden gate restaurant association, the intent was to have mobile food trucks in underserved areas. the downtown and financial district, all of my business would not be done in 1.5 hours each day if we were killing it right now. less than 10 hours a week is when we make all of our money. there would be lines out of the door for four or five hours if the area was under certification. that is not happening for anybody. we are all in survival mode right now. i want to emphasize to you that there is an impact. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker please.

>> hello. my name is matt cohen. i am coming to add a little bit of context. i was involved in the legislative process from the beginning all the way to now in implementation. the golden gate restaurant association was also involved in this and the type of food was always described as an ethnic food type rather than a service place. it was never discussed in the legislative process about service type. that was not the intent of the like food conversation going through the legislative process, as well as density, location, and financial district. the composition was there was always a limitation for any neighborhood other than the restrictions and zoning as well as restrictions around schools. to add to the context of how the legislation was created, i would

say that it was always known that food trucks would be permitted in the financial district, soma, other highly dense areas. other people involved in the process, from the board of supervisors all the way down, understood that when they enacted the legislation. thank you. >> any other public comment? seeing none, we will start rebuttal and we will start with the first appellant. >> on behalf of 50 california, we have heard a lot of discussion in the last few minutes about legislative intent. we all have lawyers and people interested in policy and could spend a lot of time on that. what is critical about this legislation is location, location, location.

is it fair to brick-and-mortar businesses? it would be hard to say that the board of supervisors intended for brick-and-mortar businesses to take a backseat to mobile food trucks. it is weighing the factors and weighing the benefits and arms. it was intended to be the job of dpw. i appreciate that dpw is overwhelmed by this. it is a large program they are not used to. it has been in the city before. the police department had it. it is not completely new for them to implement it. they have failed to implement it and consider the factors that they have heard. have you all heard what the officers told you tonight and as you have noted, we do not have a record of the hearing officer, what she did, and how she weighed things. another interesting thing that was mentioned is that we should allow this conditionally

approved a permit to go for because we can always revoke it. it is not the purpose of issuing permits and going through a process where you involve the public and have a protest hearings to say, we are going to let this happen. and then we will decide to revoke it. the purpose of this program and the oversight exercise is to identify the impact of front and come up with conditions to address them or decide that the permit was not proper to be issued at this location. they have other locations and that is what this portrait modify the permit to take away v.k.'s right to be at 50 cal. it is not my understanding there have been any denials regarding to their request, just overwhelming opposition at two locations. those are things for the board to consider. i wanted to ask a question --

the parking space could be a moving target. does that mean that if a parking space is available, somebody has to find another space on there. the last point i want to reiterate is the truck that we have seen has windows on the wrong side. again, the service will not happen on the sidewalk. is it the intent of v.k. to do a mid-circle turnaround so they can get the windows on the sidewalk side. an incredibly dangerous situation and it seems like you in a parking control officers out there. there was a lot of impact that were not properly evaluated. we would ask you to modify the permit and not allow trucks at this location. thank you. >> thank you. next a rebuttal from miss smith. >> hello again. i will make it short. the brick-and-mortar restaurants

do not have the luxury to pick up and move their restaurant to another location that the food trucks and do. this location at 50 california doesn't need to be moved. the business that needs to be moved is the food truck, since they have the ability to do that. the dpw and dph has admitted they do not have the power to regulate the food trucks ordinance. they do not have the manpower for it. everybody is cutting jobs in this economic time. bless the dpw for taking on this horrendous issue. no one else has stated that the old ordinance covered by the police department -- the permits were $10,000 per year. under the new ordinance, and they are $500 per year. a big difference. maybe that is why there were no food trucks operating prior to this amended ordinance. there are grandfathered food

truck set a $500 -- rather, $10,000 under the police department. the new ones, it is pretty cheap. the dpw nor jeremy paul addressed the fact that the truck would be part of the wrong way. he also said that chipotle is opening another restaurant. they are owned by mcdonald's. deep pockets. these are not mom and pop restaurant. there are owned by mcdonald's and can afford the competition. he also mentioned that there are food trucks at city hall. city hall is not the financial district. when you open a restaurant, whether it is a restaurant or a office, you need to get a

certificate of occupancy with all of the permits sign off before you can even open your doors for business. this includes ada, health, her everything that it takes to open a restaurant. you need a certificate of occupancy. why is this ordinance allowing permits to be issued without all of the proper permits? why are the -- what are they allowing these conditional permits with these sign-offs to follow? thank you. >> ok. appeal 11-105. no? 106? >> i will begin with trying to

address some of the comments that were made. it should be made aware that i did challenge the environmental review issues that were raised earlier. i got one of the most curious opinions i have ever seen from the city attorney's office in that what they have said is that the ordinance itself was not a project and therefore the discretionary acts to approve the ordinance did not require environmental review. that was not so much as curious as the second part of the opinion which said that each one of these permits that gets issued does not need an army to review. because it does not need in our mentor review, there is no way to appeal it. we tried to appeal it before the board of supervisors. i am hoping to avoid litigation on this issue. i would rather see this get done administratively. but there are environmental

impacts. and they are serious environmental impacts. the traffic and the communication. i do not want to get further into that. i want to address a question that president goh raised about parking regulations. the discussions that dpw had with dpp were not with regard to a specific location. it was asking them are you going to enforce the parking regulations? the answer was yes, that is my job, i am going to enforce the parking regulations. none of these locations would ever run by somebody to do that. that is what needs to be done in order for these permits to be operable for everyone. some comments were made about the ordinance. the board of supervisors took into consideration all of these things about one year ago.

no locations were ever discussed. there is nothing in the record that talks about specific locations. in fact, most of the discussion was off the grid. let me tell you -- the financial district is not off the grid. it is the heart of the grid. the approval of these permits will destroy the people who are in this grid and it will create an impact that ripples throughout the grid. the one other thing i found amusing in the permit-holders testimony is that there is going to be all of this new business. a new vitality that is going to come for us. i do not know where this is coming from. people are not going to be driving in from the east bay to go to a food truck. they're not want to be landing from another planet.

we have the people that we have. there is a fixed economy here. the notion that there is going to be a task force that is going to straighten some of these issues out -- by the time that task force makes any conclusions, many of these businesses will be dead. i am urging you to deny these permits. >> ladies and gentlemen, i will be very brief. dpw representatives have already a knowledge -- have already acknowledged that no assessments or economic surveys were conducted to assess the impact

the mobile facilities will have on businesses. ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about people's livelihoods here. this is not a small matter. they cannot be issuing permits without having any idea of how it will impact people's livelihoods. thank you very much. that is all i have to say. >> thank you. appeal number 11-107. just to be clear, you have three minutes total for everyone in this group. >> thank you. i want to address the board of supervisors. the argument that they are using. i come from the marina. mark farrell, our supervisor, met with the marina association.

he is very personable. i asked him about it and none of this information was given to the board of supervisors. nothing about going into the financial district. the board of supervisors were given a kool-aid and he told me they had no information. there were told it was a great thing. if you go down to the tenderloin, the food truck would be great there. you are afraid to eat in places. to bring it into the financial district is crazy. before you can open in the financial district, they would kill you on the 10th ada grimsson. -- they would kill you on the ada bathrooms. it is just insane. no brick-and-mortar estrada is going to say the food truck can use my bathroom. what bathrooms are they going to

use? i would like to know. they are want to give the permit and dpw will not be able to enforce this. they need to or three agents or policemen on each of these trucks to really enforce this 100-page regulation. there is no way in the world they can do it. this is just crazy. the stakeholders are not informed. the property holders did not get anything. the businesses did not get anything. the stake holders were not at the table. just like boma and the guy from the golden gate restaurant association did not pay any attention and the guy who approved it from there has been fired. he did not represent the golden gate resign -- the golden gate restaurant association. the guy who signed it is out. this is a kool-aid job that was

not thought out. there are many districts that could use a food truck. this is not the place for it. who is going to drive in and pay $30 two-part -- to park because you like to go to a food truck? this whole vitality deal is a kool-aid job. thank you. >> thank you. the next appellant. 11-108. >> i would just like to note that jeremy paul did not address my business, oasis go, as like food. i find it humiliating to think that what we do is not good enough for the area. we have been providing quick service, homemade food for the

last 12 years to. kasa has a brick and mortar restaurant in the marina. they do not want to make a commitment or investment in the financial district. they are coming in, automatically making money. when i opened an oasis grill 12 years ago, i did not make money for two years. our customer is the young customer. we have one of the highest ratings on yelp in the financial district. we provide very good food and wraps. they can come out and know they're getting quality food. i am not mcdonald. i really look at everything. i tried to buy organic and do everything the right way. for them to say that we are not doing that, we are not providing these services, it is heartbreaking. i put everything into this business. thank you.

>> thank you. appeal 11-111. mr. fish. >> mr. paul mentioned about the tech craze in his discussion against the appellants. i built 30 tech spaces and i can tell you that twitter is at 185 parish st. of the 30, maybe two are within 10 blocks of the location we're talking about. secondly, in the dpw did not do any type of job responding to the issues. i pay $825 for one permit for my

truck. i have 14. i just found out that these guys pay $500 to get a truck. i get thousands of dollars worth of tickets every year and they're going to sit there for five hours and get a free pass? that is not justice. that is not the way a city runs. i worked for dick evans when i was a kid, the dpw chief, and he talked straight. you people have got to talk straight. you have to understand the fate of these people downtown. thank you. >> thank you. the last one -- 11-112. mr. aguilar. >> i just want to comment on something that mr. paul said. my family has been in the restaurant business since i was

born. we have two restaurants in the embarcaderos and one of in sacramento. my parents opened the restaurant with blood, sweat, and tears. they are now retired, living a nice life. i have been running the restaurant for seven years. i am 31 years old and i think i am doing a good job. i am also on yelp, facebook, twitter, you name it. as times change, restaurants change. i do not think my dad ever thought, i'm going to open a restaurant and let this truck parked in front of it to steal my business. it does not work that way. who could start of a business with $500? it is the way the customers are treated. that is why they come back and it is why we have been open for so long. it would be sad for our restaurant to close and for all of these people to have their dreams crush over a truck. thank you. >> mr. paul, you have six

minutes of rebuttal. >> thank you. president goh, was indicated i should have additional time if i should need it. given the time that the appellants should have to raise issues, we have issues that will exceed six minutes in responding. >> go ahead and do your presentation. we will go from there. >> good evening, commissioners. i am the executive chef and co- owner of kasa. i am a san francisco resident and have been living with my two children for years now. i love the city and i am wholly invested in san francisco. i would like to introduce you to our indian tribe and its system

and talk briefly about why trucks are fair competition. to reiterate that we have a no like food conlict -- no like food conflicts. we have invested a lot of time and money in legislation. we do not serve burritos. and rice bowls. we serve a traditional indian food with our house made bread. we put curry inside. the rice bowls are also rice with curry and chutneys. we did our homework before we apply for these spots. we collected hundreds of signatures in support.

we picked locations carefully per legislation not to upset any restaurants with like food conflicts in. we are part of the restaurant community and understand exactly what these people are going through. i have read through all of the issues raised. there are many inaccuracies that we can address. i wanted to focus on a common thread of unfair competition and lower prices. having run both the restaurant and a truck, it is a misconception to think back -- to think that you can start a truck with $500. our prices are the same as the restaurant inside the truck for several reasons. both trucks and brick-and-mortar restaurants must prepare and store their food in approved kitchens. trucks also have to load,