>> jason perkins, bricks brik and mortar versus the entertainment commission. this feeling approval of may 21, 2013 of additional conditions against the existing place of entertainment permit. you have seven minutes. >> i just want to say thank you to the board for your patience this evening. this is my first appearance. any other name is jason perkins. i started my first business in 1985. i know that i can expect as a business person on what i'm going to

receive from the city of san francisco. i know what the permits are going to require, i know what the rules are, i know what the regulations are, i know when a health inspector comes into my club i know what is expected. over the last year of brick and mortar we have had to deal with situations far outside any bounds that i have had in san francisco. we have been charged with a variety of offenses but nothing that showed any actual objective matter that indicated these problems. that began with when i pointed out to one of the officials the inspector inspecting our business that he also had a private insurance company that he was trying to get our business to use. when i

pointed this out in january 2013, i was told not to bring it up again and instead i was handed a series of violations and citations over sound. as we are working with our -- and the sound issues. i have in the first case, if this is a sound issue, why don't we have a valid sound test. the city responds that they didn't have time to do a sound test. that they didn't have the time to do a sound test which is why we have neighbors here who wants to talk about this. in the entertainment business there should be a sound test. none of these were followed by the city. in issuing a sound test

and giving us a citation. in the citation we were also charged for not responding to any of the sigh citations that we were issued. we asked the commission 8 times for copies of these citations. i had to ask my attorney to request copies of these citations. they hand these citations that are blank and not filled out. in the other citation, you can't even read them. you can't read the time and what we are being cited for. in our feeling, these citations were bogus and made up after we asked for them. this is all part of a payback because we brought up a classic conflict of interest

that should not have been handled in front of us. when we've tried to work with the city to try to meet with our neighbors and meet with the discussions, we were always stone walled. in fact the neighborhood commission turned the neighbors against us. which is what i believe has occurred over the last few months. we have done more work in solving the problems of our neighbors over the last month by meeting outside of the hallways at the meetings of the entertainment commission than appeals ever did in the entertainment commissions office. i think as a business person who has to approach and work with the city everyday, all we ask is for something that is going to be a fair and reliable process. what brick and mortar is asking for is for the city to follow it's own rules. when i brought that up in my brief, the city

doesn't even bother to respond to the rules of process that we had in our own hearing. the city engaged and did not bother to notify us correctly. they did not notice our premises of a hearing. they did not give a reasonable notice of hearing. they didn't tell us what we could oh are not say at the hearing. i think at this point we had no place to turn and asked for the appeals board to step interested and look through our case and ask for assistance and getting ourselves a valid hearing in addressing what the neighbors had to say and to say it time for to us sit down and figure out the sound problem but do this in a manner that makes sense according to the laws. we are asking for the city to follow the same rules that they

would expect us to. >> thank you. >> we can hear from the entertainment commission oovment good evening board members, i'm candy blackstone, the director of the commission. executive director jocelyn is out of town. you have probably heard and now heard inflammatory accusations about the entertainment commission staff and i hoe that it does not distract from the issue at hand which is a basic issue. whatever is out there they are being handled at the appropriate venues. what you have now is a very simple issue. brick and mortar opened

two years ago and almost immediately we started to hear from the neighbors. these neighbors described by these proprietors. they like music, they just don't like hearing it in their bedrooms early in the morning. after the brick and mortar failed, the neighbors came to the entertainment commission. the entertainment is task with permitting and the responsibility is to mediate disputes between persons affected by cultural entertainment and similar events and establishments and the organizers and operators of such establishments. over that

directive, the entertainment attempted to work with brick and mortar to solve problems. they work with nightlife and responsible establishment owners. after numerous citations over a year 1/2, many of the discussions that they were sound proofing, the reports of exorbitant noise from sleep deprived tenants continues. they did not revoke the club's permit, they did not suspend it. they limited the sound levels and the hours of live performances until that sound proofing was completed. that date has passed and the reports continued from neighbors. in fact i have this here. reports more e-mails

about the noise from the last week if you want to see them. so they have been coming in and we've been explaining that in filing this appeal brick and mortar's permit was transferred from our position and now in your hands and we can't do anything about limiting their sound any further. in further conditioning brick and mortar acted in a reasonable way and it's our hope that they can take steps to correct their sound problems and return to providing san francisco with an interestingly and culturally, live music. we did get information from them that they are in the process of soundproofing their venue. we are further encouraged that mr.

perkins says he has been discussing this issue with the neighbors outside and made some progress and that's good news. we won't know whether any of this is working until the sound is complete with a sound engineer. we are asking the board entertainment action permit uphold until it's been adequately sound proofed. thank you. >> we can take public comment. can i see how many here wish to speak? thank you. i'm going ask if you would please lineup on that side of the room. the first person can approach the microphone. >> how many people want to speak? 6. three minutes. >> please fill out a card.

>> my name is -- i'm one of the neighbors that live behind the venue. i'm confirm that we have made progress with the venue. i believe the owners we've been dealing with are genuine and interested in fixing the problem. we are not really concerned about any of the other issues that may or may not be interfering between the venue and the entertainment commission. i just want to confirm that these issues are real. these citations were not fake. we are just looking forward at this point. we don't necessarily want -- we are not interested in any restrictions that would interfere with their business, but we do want to maintain the ruling with the time tables and make sure there are appropriate test involved

so we are not responsible for following up ourselves. there are various portions of the ruling with respect to the sound limits and their hours. not affects me, personally, other neighbors will speak on their behalf. not particularly interested in those, we just want to make sure we have the timetable in place. >> thanks. >> i have some questions. how long have you lived behind the brick and mortar establishment? >> i have been there six years and brick and mortgage -- mortars have been there for two. >> has there been other problems single -- >> intermittent -- there was a jazz club there before. it's the type of music that causes

more of a disturbance. >> was there a problem right away with the new establishment? >> very early on. >> did you contact the owners of brick and mortar at that time? >> yes, initial interactions. >> what happened? >> they were somewhat confrontational. >> did you speak to the owners directly or security staff? >> both. originally, this progressed to interactions between the entertainment commission because those initial communications was not at all productive. >> you feel it's gotten better. >> yeah. i don't want to dwell on the past. i think it's better and we are interested in building that relationship and mr. perkins seems responsive at this point. >> how many times did you

discuss with him? >> various people tried a couple times each. me, once and that was plenty. >> okay. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> good evening. my name is jim, i live atwood ward street which is behind brick and mortar. i just jotted down some thoughts as mr. perkins was speaking. i have lived in this neighborhood for 6 years. i have always had sound problems with this building. the business prior was a jazz club. they did not play loud or late at night. prior to that was a lounge and they did play loud

music there. inspector has been in my apartment twice with the sound meter doing sound test. so why mr. perkins feels there was no sound checks done, i don't know. i have in my possession a copy of one of the sound checks that i believe was made public. it's typed, legible. it has clear issues that need to be fixed. i don't understand the issues of not being able to read it. i have never had any offer from anyone at brick and mortar to come to my residence to do any kind of sound testing. mr. perkins acknowledges with the previous trial in the commission that he received citations. i don't think they were verbally called

out. my understanding is that there were seven citations. in the previous recording he acknowledged he's received these citations. i don't understand why he said he's never seen them. we have only reached out to the entertainment commission. they are not hoisting themselves on brick and mortar. i personally called the police early on several times and didn't get a lot of traction there because they didn't handle permitting. we did some research on our own and figured out how to contact the entertainment commission. the next person is the one who made contact with the entertainment commission. the manager of brick and mortar has been shifting blame and has

been posting flyers to try to garner petitions and they shifted blame onto the entertainment commission themselves saying they are corrupt and they had various articles written, for example the sf weekly about it being corrupt and they posted nice comments on their facebook page about us as neighborhood and the entertainment commission. they have not been very positive. >> thank you. i noticed that you highlighted something in orange, a highlighter. is that something that you would like to read to us? >> the date on the venue inspection is -- it's not soundproof except for the windows. the street part is not

soundproof. standing on the roof on the mission street side of the venue you can hear the band play very clearly. >> have you tried to contact the owner? >> early on i sent letters to the owners of brick and mortar.com and never got any response. >> i don't believe i ever got a sponsor if i did it was yeah, we are working on it. >> thank you. next speaker. >> my name is lex, as soon as

they opened i experienced some noise issues and i did try to work things out and talk with various people at brick and mortar. when i met mr. perkins, he wasn't super nice. in the last month he has been much more representative -- receptive since the hearing. there has been appropriate sound readings. there have been at least 5 in my house. they did take legitimate sound readings and each time they came over they were issued a citation after that. it's been an on going problem for two years and i hear everything in my living room and on the plus side, i do think that since the

last hearing they are taking steps to try to rectify the situation and they have been more receptive than the past. i would like to move forward an get a good relationship with them. so, that's where i stand right now. i'm okay with hearing a little bit of the sound while they fix it. i don't want to place too many restrictions on their status right now because they have a lot of people that work there and i don't want anyone that works there to have to suffer, but i do just want to make sure that there is a specific timeline of when this soundproofing is going to be complete because it's been two years now. >> the sound test that were taken inside of your apartment, what time of day? >> they are usually 2 years now. >> the sound test that were taken inside of your apartment, what time of day? >> they are usually between

10:00-1130 p.m.. >> okay. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker. >> hi. my name is dawn holiday. i'm a fan of live music and also a fan of the entertainment commission. we went through the problem that brick and mortar were having and the problems five years ago. we had neighbors that came to us and weren't satisfied with what we were doing and moved on to other city departments. we ended up mediating with the neighbors and the mediation was through a separate mediator. the entertainment commission unbeknownst to us at that time had been there over nine times and conducted noise test and different places. we are doing

our own readings in our area and some sound augmentation of our own. we came down to two neighbors that wouldn't decide with whatever had been decided. we came up with an amount to do which was very expensive. we've been there since 1988. during the brown area, they weren't up to standard. there were some places that weren't going to be satisfied because they didn't have triple pane windows. one neighbor that finally left, we went further with her and made some other concessions and mediated with her further. and this is where the entertainment commission came in and they were very helpful because there is a city ordinance that we

complied to and we had a private engineer come in that worked with her apartment and our building what could be done and what could be done on her side too because her building wasn't in compliance. we worked it out. it took two years and took a certain amount of money on our side and her side. without their input and without willing to realize that our neighborhood has changed too, we wouldn't have been able to get there. it was about mediating and working with our neighbors and realizing we were in a good place. my advice is to work with the neighbors. that's all. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> good evening commissioners. my name is terrenceal ens. i

had the pleasure to work with the commission and i'm proud to hear of all the fantastic processes that they had put in place when ten years ago we had myself and a volunteer director in my truck running around putting up notices. the entertainment commission has come a long way. one of the advantages of hiring granelli and doing sound test. i always tell people if you are going to be in this business, the beacon to your business will be sound. if your neighbors hear sound, they will come and complain and eventually you will have to fix it. at the brick and mortar we have to remember that that venue started out as a warehouse and then it was the butterfly restaurant then a series of music venues none of which have the volume present that is being present now in

the brick and mortar. so none of them had to do the sond proofing that is being expected of them now. what we say to everyone that enters the entertainment business is the one thing you have to do is soundproof because without that soundproofing you cannot have peace in the neighborhood and no one sleeps and the fights begin. when i sit here and listen and hear the innuendo that there are things going on behind-the-scenes, my eyes role out. you hear about how many sound test they have done. they go out at night when they are getting access to people's homes and listen with the sound meter to determine if there is a sound problem. i can't see a

better process and i would hope that you support them in the decision that they have made in the very gracious outreach that this neighborhood has done while the brick mortar does their sound proofing. i hope it can be found tonight. i thank you for listening to this. >> next speaker? >> madam president, commissioners, my name is mark, i'm and attorney and represent approximately 30 entertainment venues in san francisco. i have been through probably in the last 25 years 20 sound wars and i call them sound wars because they get pretty contentious and crazy. i have been here many

years. i have had probably 15 or 20 sound test. these people go out of their way to help venues and ignore the law in order to let this venue survive and do their soundproofing. it's unfortunate that brick and mortars has chosen to cast these issues. i told them they are nice people and just sweet. my child can't sleep, but i don't want any of your employees to lose their jobs. these are great people and they have been wronged, i think. i would really ask this board to uphold the entertainment commission's ruling on this because i think it was fair, i was there and i think the brick and mortar can work with the

neighbors, they can soundproof this thing and we need more entertainment venues and especially live entertainment venues and they are great ones. brick and mortar is a great venue. thank you. >> next speaker. >> commissioners, my name is jeff. i feel compelled to say a few things. sound is not an exact science. some people can hear things and other people can't hear. at some point in time i think what happens with the entertainment commission is if neighbors are sending complaints in, then they have to come out and do various test. if those test show that a building is emitting sound or leaking sound or causing adverse impact, it really comes down to a simple thing. we have

a noise ordinance. and then you call a hearing and you have people come out and talk, share their experience and show what process has been taken. i don't think at this point since i was at the last hearing, that this was complaints over a year 1/2 period of time. so it wasn't just something, there was some issues. the hard thing is that probably there was some investment done in good effort by the applicant to try to condense the noise or not have the impact. the problem with soundproofing is you never know if you have a $50,000 problem or $150,000 problem. you do the best you can and when you play your music and the complaints continue, it's very frustrating. i think that's

where we are at now and i think there was some soundproofing done and there is still complaints. that's the real frustrating situation. but, at the end of the day, buildings that aren't designed from the ground floor up, taking into consideration the room analysis test and buildings that were converted into something else, often times are flawed and that's unfortunate. we have seen it not just with this building but other buildings and other recent case where permits were denied or permits were not issued based on adverse impact where sound goes in communities where people live. that's the issue on this. >> thank you. any other public comment? >> seeing none, mr. perkins we