this. i mean too many people have died in my arms. at least 60 since 1982 since i started dealing healing work. people can't eat. they can't get the food down their throat without the cannabis. the pharmaceutical companies are running death mills. this is a death mill. cannabis brings hope to the community. please, for the love of god do the right thing. i want to see as many as starbucks. because they are good. they are healing. i want to see, i get emotional here because people are dying. to hand their colleagues compared to a chinese take out. just spit on me. it's easier. i'm emotional. i'm italian. god bless you all. >> next speaker, please.

>> good afternoon commissioners. i just want to say i oppose the 500 foot buffer. i mirror the sentiments of the movement. really what i want to say is we want to be involved in the process. i'm a patient activist. i spend about $1400 a year on cannabis. you have more than 40,000 patients in this city. we are contributing to society in one way or another. we just want to be part of the process. the medical cannabis task force was expanded and somebody had proposed leveling 215 and there is something going on with ad

473. it's like we have no say in all of this. we are standing on the side lines like what happened. the whole 500 feet is to break us for the corporate to come in and give us more rules. so i'm not going to take up all your time. i just wanted to say that and say something different. thank you. >> hello, my name is michael goldman and a member of ak acts of love. we did an analysis to see the effect of some of the federal letters that were sent to landlords to show how many dispensaries were shut down over the last year. we have

been under attack. to go through a couple of these. it went from 10 to 0 and coal valley from 3 to 2. and south market from 11 to 8. as far as there is any clustering at all in the city is because of restrictions that the law and the ordinance have established and limited the number of organizations that they can establish themselves. it's very difficult to find a landlord. so to say you can be in these limited places and when you created the clustering through regulations is effectively to prohibit new dispensaries to open and effectively to have safe access and it really is an attack on the medical cannabis

patients and the medical community. thank you. i'm just alex. i'm from georgia, disabled. the restricted zoning seems to be very inconsistent with the city's status as a sanctuary city. it limits competition which is already hurting from the federal intervention. for people to say that dispensaries cause any sort of public safety issues, it would just take walking and looking out to see that they have personnel during business hours. there is constant video surveillance and they are providing medicine which people in the city needs . i think less restrictions would be more

appropriate. good afternoon commissioners, my name is steven courier. when i was president of the association several years ago, the planning department wanted to push the mission street corridor which went from daily city to the embarcadero. when i drove it, it was 20.2 miles. basically what avalos wants to do is the same thing. it pushed these either side to london street would go to those places that had illegal units and made them legal and restrict parking and make it a solely transit corridor. we opposed this very hard and of course the planning commission voted against it. it

went no where. so i see that this as a same thing in the outer mission. secondly, i do have to comment about the enc. i just got back from boston and my issue is that we wanted more than a 500 feet. we wanted a thousand feet. i think it's a fear of this piece of legislation. but one of the mcd's that you approved last year that is the one that is open is mission organics have been called by police two times and there were two meetings because the neighbors behind which runs parallel to mission have been called. they are being watched very closely because this is something we feared when these were passed. so i want to thank you for your consideration.

>> leonard. if anybody else wants to speak who hasn't spoken, come on up. >> good evening commission. my name is learned moerld. i'm opposed to this amendment. one of the reasons if you put more restrictions onto these places, you cause a cluster and what happens when you cause a cluster is that there is no competition. when there is no competition, there is no reason for them to keep their product up to where they should be for like us medical patients. the second thing i would like to

ask is we need dispensaries to keep them in the hands of our medical patients. don't put in restrictions where you have people that go in there and sell our medicine and they don't care who they sell it to. they don't care if the person has a license, they don't care if the person has a doctors excuse or note. they don't care and this is the one thing that i am concerned about is once you put more restrictions onto this. it just opens up more areas for people to do illegal things. thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm paul

hansen. i'm sure you have heard this before. you have heard about the green map and the restrictions and 90 percent of the city is off limits to dispensaries. population that they are talking about increasing the population in the outer mission. san francisco is this county of san francisco is the most densely populated county in the state of california. in 2006, there were 17, 800 people per square mile. the second most populace county was orange county. finding a landlord is going to have to take a risk of not get

-- getting that. they say it's one for every 60 people. you figure out how many dispensaries are needed. working with people that want to go through the hassle and risk of opening a cannabis dispensaries and working with a landlord with the ones who want to open these. how many are needed? and finding the right spot? i say they are putting further restrictions. i understand the thousand feet from the school, but putting additional regulations where there is only 10 percent of the city where it's available, is just wrong. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker,

please. >> good afternoon, my name is susan tiban. i'm the face of the patients. i'm 60 years old. many of the children's that i need where i own a house are students that i have taught. i just came from a genetic counselors. i'm working with a genetic counselors. i'm not

interested in getting high. i am interested in preventing a cancer recurrence. the medicine that i use is not available at every dispensaries. it's difficult and time consume to go make properly. i want to work with people who know what they are doing. and an appealed to your senses of justice, your morals and good sense. sometimes when new businesses come to an area for instance, a check cashing place that moved to a neighborhood recently, people were scared and didn't want it. they are great neighbors. good afternoon. i would like to thank you you for your patients and listening to

everyone who has opinions concerning this. my opinion concerning this i would like to share, in san francisco we have a lot of medical cannabis patients with needs for medical cannabis and we have a lot of limitations on where they can access it. often times we hear that there are so many in downtown or south of market. well, a lot of people don't live downtown and south of market and shouldn't be required to travel all the way across to receive their medicine. the area we are talking about limiting access in san francisco today. i can go there almost any moment of any given day and access a wide variety of illegal drugs right on the street. readily accessible. there is no limitation on that. and when i go to the areas that do have dispensaries, i notice that on the sidewalks and on the streets outside of the existing dispensaries, there is not that same open area drug market

activity going on and the reason is, it's because when dispensaries come into a community, they improve the community. they don't diminish that community. when it comes to clustering or multiple dispensaries near each other, it's help for patients. i want to give an example of a patient may use a quarter ounce of cannabis a week, some charge 90 dollars for that and some charge $45. let's keep in mind that multiple communities don't diminish it just as multiple restaurants and bars. they benefit the community. thanks for your time. >> good afternoon

commissioners. i'm here to oppose this. it's simply the wrong venue. i don't think we should give the authority to commercial districts to restrict a medical service. i think it's really important that everybody recognize that this is not been legalized for recreational use in california. this is legalized for medical other us in california. this is for patients who are trying to have access to medicine and we are not trying to put restriction on that without going through a long thoughtful process which is what we did which we came with the act. all

of these regulations that are in our sf law was recommended by patients and operators so they can be responsibly integrated into our communities. right know we have a green zone in san francisco and we can't even access all of the green zone in san francisco. there are neighborhoods that it's so hostile that neighbors do not want this used so bad that they will appeal every single permit, building and planning and make it impossible to open up in. in areas that we do have green zone left, we are seeing people opening up in areas where it's not hostile. being honest in district 6 where we see a lot of medical dispensaries operating side by side, it's not an issue. it's helped the neighborhood, created more of a safe environment. i have not felt

better walking down mission and 6 street because of the prevalence of the medical cannabis in that community. i ask you to please reject these restrictions. it's the wrong venue. this commission as well as any other body repeated with our policy makers go back to the drawing board. >> you are out of your time. >> sorry. i will write a letter. any other speakers whom i haven't called. >> my name is jonelle. we were here last year at the same time opposed the 3 cannabis clubs that did open. mission organic has opened and the police have been called numerous times. their patients feel they have the right to sit inside of a car and smoke the cannabis and

drive away. there have also been, they walk around the corner where they go and smoke their pot because they feel they have the right to do so. no, you don't. you have a right to be a good citizen. you don't have a right to cause additional problems in this area. we are not afraid of medical cannabis. i understand the needs for it. that's not the issue. the issue is we want some control. in one night we went from zero to three because there is no legislation on the books. please listen to the people that live in the neighborhood. i have lived there for over 40 years. mission street has changed dramatically. not all for the better. we also want to make sure that you understand the parking control. there is huge issue with parking in the neighborhood. at mel flores talked about. we want to keep the conditions as they are. do not change it. that's why we

had three parking summons. >> thank you. any additional speakers? okay. seeing none, public comment is closed and opening up to questions. >> first the last controversial aspect of the legislation i think we always enjoy supporting commercial neighborhoods districts, i think they provide protection and support for what this legislation is able to do. i think that parking maximum, i know that people are not for that, but it's the direction we are trying to move in and the policy city. i think that the 5 foot high bonus, all of these are great legislation and around other technical changes. in terms of medical cannabis dispensaries, maybe supervisor you can talk about how you

arrived at 500 feet as a number, i don't know if that was a neighborhood number or? >> well, it didn't come out of a hat. first of all, i'm not opposed to medical cannabis dispensaries at all. i could have said hell know. i looked at the 500 foot idea because i felt 250 was too small of a radius would even be probably allow two cannabis dispensaries on the same block and in a thousand feet would exclude looted of areas that they felt would be okay to have which would create a blanket area and close the green zone completely in my part of san francisco so i thought a thousand feet was too wide so a thousand feet was the number and perhaps that's how it came out.

>> did you have a chance to do a community out reach to the community? >> up until quite recently. i did not. i did talk to the cannabis dispensaries. when it came to talking about it now, it wasn't discussed as an option. i felt like i had to propose what seems best for my neighborhood. threatening a needle knowing where people are most vocal about mcd's are saying no completely. i'm not saying no completely. i'm trying to figure out the best pathway for my neighborhood. i do have a concern about setting a precedent about replicating could come across. >> this is more, i think there is two distinct issues that we are suffering with. it's about

all uses we have. we have language over concentration and eating and drinking establishments. it's not that they are being singled out. the fact that starbucks and over concentration and lack of diversity. it's not a specific use but a lack of diversity of uses as opposed to a neighborhood commercial district, is supposed to serve a neighborhood. you want to have a coffee shop and pharmacy store and with that mcd also add special things. the issue over a concentration is a real one and not to target or focus specifically on medical cannabis dispensaries. the challenge we do have is we recognize and this is the issue that we've had that there

aren't a lot of areas in san francisco where you can locate medical dispensaries which have led to this clustering. we recognize this as a problem. i do see if we were to include this in the legislation, it will be precedent setting and other neighborhood commercial districts would want to seek this and the problem with conditional use is that it's sort of like the medical cannabis dispensaries that we approved in the sunset districts. there were no other cannabis dispensaries, i don't know how many feet away but the entire community came out and ultimately went to the board of appeals and it was turned down. i do believe with the necessary desirable threshold that unless you try to layout some standards. i think the challenge we have is that necessity is very, it depends

on who is speak negative sdiesh -- speaking in desirability wins. we would like to believe that is not the case. >> i don't doubt that there is politics involved in this. we are policy makers but we have to look at what are policies that work and understand what the politics are and not everyone is going to be happy with the decision. as a politician i understand that is the process. i do feel that i'm not -- i do feel the city needs to make probably revisions to over all how we cite mcd's. i also think with tools and in

neighborhoods to decide what's best. i do think i need to figure out what's the balance of uses in the neighborhood. that's what i'm trying to bring forward today. >> i guess one of the things, it sounds to me like one of the challenges i think and i think one of the things that we would prefer to see is look at the article 3 of the house code more broadly because i do see unfortunately if you plug the hole in one area then it spills into another. it like the issue we had a couple weeks ago with supervisor chiu's 300 foot radius around local eating and drinking establishments. it's a similar kind of concern. i guess, do you think that's something you would pursue? >> to me it's something i can,

but this is an issue in a way that it manifest itself in my part of san francisco. we have areas in san francisco where it's a lot more dense and people who access medical cannabis as well. those are the aers that have to most need. i think the planning department would be a great study for planning department to propose looking at how to cite mcd's. you can do it in a way that take out a lot of politics that people like me that in politicians. every a little bit of cover in the state department. i think supervisor and policy makers have a much

better way. this has on a cannabis community. the people in my district are not part of the community at large in san francisco. >> thank you very much for your comments. i think everyone's commission have supported most if not all cannabis dispensaries that have come before us. and how important they are in the community. i think the tools is around looking at the concentration and not specific to the use and specific to all uses because of the diversity the corridor

needs to support. i do struggle with doing it in this legislation without looking bigger because i think there is a larger problem and i don't think this is something we can deal with piece meal because there are problems and the fact that it's restricted in so many areas. if we were to support this then every supervisor might be coming through different corridor wanting the same control. i'm concerned about that. 3 hundred feet seems to be a number that we use a lot in the planning department. i'm not sure why. and when we look at eating establishments that we look at lineal feet. if we look at lineal feet along the block

corridor. for me, it's hard for me to say. i support the community on its concern and i support the community on wanting to do anything about this. at this point i'm not sure if i want to have it here in this legislation because it has larger implications that we really need to address. >> commissioner antonini? >> supervisor avalos. thank you for bringing this legislation. there are many places that i like and some that i don't like but i particularly appreciate you addressing the issue because there is a lot of things we struggle with and we've never had anyone to date to brought up suggestions as did you today. that is have you laudable i think. the parts i'm in favor of elimination or the ban on any new off sale liquor makes total sense of a continue using of an existing policy by put that go in your legislation. with the