supervisor elsbernd: good morning, everyone. welcome to the city and county of san francisco's city operations in neighborhoods service committee.

this is a special meeting with one item. i am scott leader, sitting in for sean elsbernd. to my right is acting vice president, supervisor kim, and the other member of the committee, supervisor christina olague will join us shortly. also joining us, supervisor david campos. our court today is davclerk todd evans. any announcements? >> please make sure to silence also phones and electronic devices. any document should be said it to the clerk. items acted upon to there will appear on the august 21, 2012 board of supervisors meeting. >> will you call item number

one, please. >> item 1, resolution determining the transfer of tight 48 on-sale liquor license from 2700-16 streak to 398- called street. supervisor wiener: thank you. in the opening remarks to the like to make? >> i do want to thank all of the members of the public for being here today. it is not always we get so many members of the public interested in a liquor license transfer. i do want to acknowledge the significance of the site, and i think that is why many of you are here today. previous to castro, western selma was considered a hub for the lgbt community, it even with this plan, it was one of the legacies and histories of

identified to protect in this neighborhood. this was identified to be preserved in terms of the historical significance in the neighborhood. i understand the concern, and of course the incredible amount of support that has come out and support of this since it closed a year-and-a-half ago. i know supervisor wiener and campos were there for the last several meetings and along with the last year bus that took place. the issue before us is a liquor license transfer, which is a little bit different than the issue of preservation and protection of the site. i know many of you will speak specifically to that. i did want to acknowledge that before we move forward. i have a number of questions regarding the trooper, and double we to do that after supervisor campos and wiener

speak. >> thank you. let me say that i have had a number of questions about this whole process that has been followed with respect to the item before us. i have to say i am a little bit of a loss for words this morning. i was asked to sit in for one of the supervisors that is on the committee that could not be here today, so we rearranged our schedule to prepare for the meeting. i am not appointed to the committee, and it is interesting to see. even if it is the case that some people do not want me to be sitting here, i will be here for the remainder of this proceeding, because i think this is a very important matter, one that really goes to the heart of who we are as a city. i look forward to the presentation. thank you.

>> thank you. i just want to make a couple of remarks at the beginning. the level of interest on facebook and elsewhere shows the importance of the institution, the people of this community care about the gold. i have a consistent supporter of the eagle, having been a patient there. in addition, when it first on i still remember being at the celsit in. we had a protest on the steps of city hall. i think supervisor kim and i have become serial letter writers we return to their

property owner and anyone else that will listen to over time because of our shared desire to not let it go. despite many of our best efforts, a little over a year ago it did in fact close and has been closed for over a year. and there are a number of factors that led to the closure, and there has been a lot of debate over time about why it closed, and to was responsible. i will not get into all of that ongoing debate. the fact is that none of us wanted it to happen, but that happened. several months ago several buyers in the community who desire to reopen the evigale approached me. we met with them, and we did in fact to support their bid to lease and reopen, even writing

another one of our letters to the owner of the property, asking him to give full consideration to the offer. but for reasons that -- i am not the owner. the lease was signed with another owner. the owner of the property made that decision. we're here today not because the board has the power to write leases or instruct property owners, but we're here today to talk about the transfer of the liquor license, and i am sure we will get into the standards of governing liquor license standards over the hearing. with that, i would first -- supervisor campos: i did not know we were going into the history of why we're here, and i

appreciate what supervisor wiener said, but i want to make very clear that this really goes to the elephant in the room, which is why we have so many people here today, and why we have received so many emails in the past couple of weeks. the reality is even though we do not have control over how property owners decide to lease properties, we have the old commit say under the wall under the transfer of a license, at least in terms of providing recommendation, and the threshold question is whether the transfer will serve the public convenience of or necessity. that is the underlying question before the board of supervisors today. to me, that is a broad issue. the fact that you have people here today is because there are many people in the community

that rightly believe that this land toward -- labour has not communicated in good faith -- land owner and not communicated in good faith -- [applause] that is something that goes to the heart of the matter, and something that i will look at. the threshold question of necessity and convenience does indicate whether someone is dealing with the community and good faith. think you. >> and the other preliminary comments? i would like to and by the inspector from the san francisco police department. i will note there was a previous hearing on the license, and there is a report, but i want to give the department opportunity to make comments.

>> hello. good morning. i am inspector julie lazar from the san francisco police department. this report was submitted to the committee july 9, 2012, and did the findings of the report there were no records of protest or support. our unit recommended approval and the following conditions were submitted with theft.

supervisor wiener: colleagues, any questions? supervisor kim: i do. i am not sure if i would direct this to you, but i did a little bit of research on an vitiated address for the transfer, which is the dear mom fabar and the 09 of beard and mustaches. we called abc, and the current liquor license on file at that address is 47 not of 48. come home the agenda item before us says this is a resolution to terminate the premises transfer of a type 48 until general public premises liquor license. can we transfer oa license w thc

will have to address to you. the information we gathered is it was a promise to promise, type 48. -- premise to premise. clarification would have to come from abc. supervisor kim: there is no one from abc at this meeting. that is what we learned when we contacted abc is that they owned a 47 license. in that case, what would happen in the situation that has the wrong license number on it? >> again, that would be with abc because that belongs to them. they would make the ultimate decision. transfer a license that does not exist? supervisor kim: it is that this

address does not about 48 license, can we transfer of 48 license to this address? >> that would be a question that abc would have to answer. supervisor campos: thank you very much. based on our own independent research, we also found out the lessons being transferred is up 47 license as opposed to a 48. before we do that, but there are many members of the public here. can you for purposes of the benefits of people watching were here, what is the difference between a 47 license in 48? >> 47 is a license to sell beer, wine, and distilled spirits. miners are allowed, and generally there are restaurants where minors are allowed.

48 is a bar and miners are not allowed. ors are not allowed. supervisor campos: to me, that is a significant difference. one of the things i am bothered by it, unless i missed it, i do not see anything in the documents provided to us by the police department or any other agency that points to the fact that we may be talking about a 47 license. so my question is, how thoroughly was this matter investigated if we're coming here before the committee, and it turns out that we may be talking about a 47 licensed and that it was presented to the board that shows that? >> i agree.

the information the police department received is it was a type 48 liquor license. supervisor campos: what we do is we look at the census tract and we look for crimes of the area, and we also look for concentration, and those are what we report to the board. supervisor campos: do you look at the license? >> the actual application? yes. supervisor campos: in application, it does not say anything about the type of license? >> it does not. supervisor campos: again, that is a very serious issue for me. i would hope that before the board is as to vote of this that there would be a complete verification of this so before

the meeting you realize that you may be talking about two different kinds of licenses, because the transfer of the 47 licensed to a 48 establishment not only raises issues about that specific establishment, but larger policy questions that go into it. is it that abc did not give you the information -- is that probably what happened here? >> i would have to look through my files and verify that. the information is -- if there was an error on our part, i would not aware that would be. supervisor campos: following up on the question that supervisor kim asked, to your knowledge, has there ever been a transfer above 47 licensed with 48? >> not to my knowledge, but again, i of one person. it could have happened.

supervisor campos: ok, and with the recommendation had been different? >> there are other questions that would of been asked. again, if it is a restaurant, they have to have cooking, shucks, stoves, refrigeration. if that was the case, that would of been asked in here. supervisor campos: did you interview the applicants before you made the recommendation? >> this was initiated by your prebira previous inspector. supervisor campos: normally when you bring something like this to the board of supervisors, do you actually sit down with the applicant and ask any questions or interviewed them? >> yes.

it may have been by other inspectors, but not by me. supervisor campos: is there anything in your file but confirms that happened? >> aside inspection was conducted in 2011, and what was found is we did a walk-through of the premise, and it was actually a bar prior and going to be a bar again. it did not say anything in my notes or records about the other. >> in terms of the committee today having a certainty that the interview took place, nothing in your file that verifies that. >> right. i do not know specific conversations between people, just conversations that i have and documentation that there was a side inspection. supervisor campos think that:

again, are pretty : again, thesy serious issues, and i think it would make sense for the department to have the interview income to the committee with verification that it took place. there is one thing about gleaning information from a document, but another of are really sitting down with the applicant and really having that the road heading. -- that thourough vetting. supervisor wiener: given the issues that it does been raised, i would like to ask the attorney to come up and to address and clarify. >> yes, supervisors, --

supervisor wiener: i just want to make one point. be sure your below speaker card filled out to make a point. >> i did send an e-mail to explain the conversion process. i know mr. reeder read it. i have asked derek to put it in parts of the permanent record, which is my response to the protest celt of the market is in this location. the double rainbow pending license, which shows that 48, and if i could have the overhead, the license was transferred on 47-382816.

it will go into the record. to get back to the 2086 license, it is vimla inc. that isthe website was down. i was trying to get a copy of the 219 form, but there is an abc form. any license can be converted for the cost of $100 of the time of transfer. people an audience who i believe was just up there. he has converted 47-48 and could testify it happens all the time. it is a $100 fee. what happened of this particular instance is the license available at the time was a type 47416 and harris said.

the license was purchased at the time of the abc application an extra $100 charge call the conversion. that is how we have of 48. there was also questioned in the south of market business association protest. there was a letter that went out this morning from south of market business association with trying to protest after they found more information. here are the licensed documents if you want to look at them. they are in yellow.

i am not that with my presentation. there was a question. on this particular matter, i did not. i can get by licensing supervisor on the phone to explain it all. supervisor campos: i would say that if someone is going to present information here today, i think they should do it in person. we want to have of the road discussion, and i think we owe that to the public. >> i would like to object,

because we are asking does this particular licenser of the public for the city and county of sanford says go? it does not have to do with the as the abc have a certain process or does not. i think we're getting away from what the actual issue is before the chair. figure. supervisor elsbernd: ok, any additional public comment cards? i'm going to start calling members of the public to make public comment. public comment will be limited to two minutes. the way it works is when you have 30 seconds left, you will hear a soft shell. the louder bell means that your time is up. if a member of the committee has a question for you, that can extend your time. i am going to call folks up.

if you would please apply and upper so you can follow one after another. i would like to start with -- i apologize in a bid for butchering the names. eli speark, rebecca barth, anderrew, -- start lining up. megan miget, chriss footz, please let up. -- line up. >> good morning.

first, i wanted to thank you guys for taking the time to come in on monday morning. i will be the general contractor and one of the owners of 398 wall street. general contractor, a builder, artist. it is pretty special to me that this is happening. i do not take it lightly. we will in aerospace that has 30 years of importance to a lot of members to the community and the gorton's to members of the community going forward. my understanding is there will not be an eagle again. white understanding is the traditions of legacy will

continue and what form or another. it -- my understanding is the traditions and like is the will continue in one form or another. it is 30 years of like a seat. we are more that will lead and excited to continue that. what a better place to get that has the tradition of philanthropy? the eagle talon has been known as the linchpin of the music scene. what better place to inherit that a place that has that tradition? lastly, how to honor and continue the knowledge and history of that space. as a designer and builder, we will have to do it together. so if this goes forward, and i am responsible for going forward, it will be about is making it as open as possible.

>> thank you. supervisor kim: it is true you were dedicated to the historical significance of this site, why is there no our reach done to the community sitting here today? >> that is an outstanding question and the real fault. basically we did not know we were going to get that space until three years ago. it was a deal. someone else was at the forefront. i have gone to know the landlord. eventually the deal fell through and he turned to our team. he said we need this money now, and you guys are more than qualified as builders and operators. literally happened immediately. and on a personal level, i had to reach out to all of the communities.

uncle to a flown in for the last 30 years to visit the eagle looked at me like are you capable of operating such an important place? i reached out immediately to make sure that people were born to support me. now this is happening. to be honest with you, this is our first out reach. this has all happened very quickly. yes, the reason is it happened so fast, and it is not my intention to not do that or exclude by any stretch of the imagination. i am hoping it this goes the right way that we could work together. it is that wor condos, so it is going to be a bar, let's continue with the special bar and rock-and-