business on the street. i would like to propose to you what would it be like if i opened another store in 6 months and called it retail therapy. does the public have the right to have any input into what's going on here. i understand that we are making a decision about a permit, but i think i would really like to get my neighbors and my customers the opportunity to be able to give you the input that i think they would all provide you which is to say that they don't want it on 16th street. thank you for your time. >> next speaker, please. >> good evening, my name is don allen. i am also the owner of

the casanova lounge for the last 16 years. i heard a lot of opinions about this issue over the last few months. when it came up i had never heard of jack spade or kate spade. i asked my wife what is jack spaed, she said that's kate spade's men's store. i think that indicates a popular knowledge of what jack spade is to the public. i think the valencia corridor has made an effort in the pass 2 years to try to avoid a formula retail without a conditional use hearing. i think that whether intentionally or not, the jack spade moniker has a lot of kate spade to buy -- bypass the

intent and my case the conditional use hearing would be a benefit to this community because it's very divided an it's obviously an issue that needs an airing in our community. we have not had an opportunity to do that. the merchants haven't even discussed it. i think we all need a -- i'm just an advocate

for this area. i feel if business mission business owners would like to help make the mission community better, i would be happy to talk to them about ways to get involved with housing homeless and keeping people off the streets. and i also think that there are so many people that aren't able to be here today and that the conditional use hearing would allow other members of the community to come and speak about how they feel about jack spade moving in. thank you for your time. >> thank you. next speaker.

>> hi, i'm celeste rogers. i have to say i live on 16th street within a block of the storefront. i have lived in my apartment for 16 years. i have seen a lot of changes. i have to echo what i have so eloquently heard tonight from people opposed this. i came to this neighborhood because i love it. what draws people to the neighborhood and it has in my view is what makes it different, great mexican food, terrific thrift stores, old dive bars that have been around for a long time. it's not places like a jack spade store. i would hate to see it become like that. i walk that block everyday for 18 years. it

is really true that it's gotten very bad. i really don't see what a daytime retail store is going to do to change that for the first time in 18 years i went to my first police community meeting last month because of my neighborhood and especially with the bart station area, the bar that we have had that has had two shootings in the last year. i agree there are some real problems, but i don't see what a daytime retail store would do to improve that. i don't want to see the areas i love priced out and i feel that's going happen. if they were priced out, i would like to see more interesting things come in. i want to keep the uniqueness of the neighborhood alive. if stores like jack

spade camen, i would want to leave. >> next speaker. >> hi, this you so much for staying up past your bedtime and mine. the reason why so many of us moved is to san francisco is to see different and interesting things. jack spade is what you can see all over the world. there are 9 other ones. something i want to address is slightly off topic, food express is something they brought up. they are a local store and they contribute locally to the pets and homeless dogs and cats to this town. they weren't allowed to go in. i think with some precedent which is jack spade which is known internationally shouldn't be allowed to go in either. one of the reasons why jack spade to go in is because of the gentrification of what's

happening in the mission. what if you can buy more expensive hand bags and purchase things that don't do anything but make you look like you have an expensive handbag. thank you for your time and i appreciate it. let us have more interesting things around than the same things over and over. >> next speaker. >> my name is adam and i live in the district where this controversy is happening today. i work in technology. i have my entire life. i work in enterprise software. what people would definitely call a techie. i'm wearing formula retail now. i'm a capitalist. i have grown up to believe that way. i have message -- majored

in economics. i'm here to oppose jack spade in the neighborhood. i took a walk and ended up walking down grand street. it's quintessential san francisco. it's beautiful, there is not one recognizable chain formula store there on that entire stretch from green all the way to broadway. i have so many friends in the mission and i have known andrew mckinley for a very long time and gave money to support adobe to stay where they are. unfortunately that didn't have happen. i would like to see this corridor. sasha, i feel for us. it's not a very good area right now. unfortunately, i don't think this is going to help. the beauty and grace

that's happened in the valencia street corridor was done with money. the same can be done on 16th street. thank you for your time. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> my name is lauren. thank you so much for your patience tonight. i also want 16 street to have sparkly sidewalks and fewer empty store fronts. but to turn to a formula retail store as a savior is not only misguided but shishging community responsibility. jack spade isn't going to help it. other local businesses are going to be priced out and what we'll be left is is more empty

store fronts because smaller independent businesses can't compete or laws are going to change and 16 street is going to be old navy's and kate spade. it's a ripple effect. if we want things to be better, then we need to work together and not turn to a new york corporation to save us. >> thank you. neck speaker, please. >> hi, thank you for your time. my name is jake bar low with the neighborhood association. we have an opposition with jack spade opening. eye -- i have a personal objection to it as well. i buy my coffee at cats coffee, i buy my beer on 26th market and by my bourbon, and

i buy my comics books at mission economics and art. i know what these guys do with their money. they reinvest it. >> next speaker. >> i'm a member of the adobe book cooperative as well. thank you for your time. i want to make one point, i think we heard one compelling argument that jack spade is a formula retail by letter of the law. also we can consider the spirit of the law. i don't know detail of what will make this qualified or not, but i'm a normal person. i have an understanding of what a chain businesses, i understand the mission doesn't want to have a chain business, the intention of the law as already stated. we have heard that 11 is an

arbitrary number. when i tell people what that issue here is the definition of chain is 11 stores, jack spade currently has 10 and this will be the 11. so clearly if you think about this spirit of this law and what we are trying to do this are this case at least deserves a public hearing. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> my name is robert patterson. i own one of the fancy men's store that sell $300 genes -- jeans in the mission. before probably a mao months ago i

was in support. the thing about those shops is that they are all independent stores and there is no way we can pay $10,000 a month in rent. my rent is $5500. if my rent was $10,000 there would be no way to maintain my business. they have a 4 x margin on my product. i manufacture my own product in san francisco and i can't compete against that. it's impossible. they have full vertical integration. they pull all of their resources from kate spade inc.. i think it not

much to ask for a conditional use. if my small restaurant could do it, i'm pretty sure a billion dollar enterprise can do it as well. if a community supports them, i think it would be a great asset to the neighborhood. when i opened sorrow i voyager 2 years ago, it was a hellhole. the rest of our shops really cooperate and now we have tourist from all over the neighborhood. if jack spade is a real leader, they should play with nike and all of those shops. >> next speaker. >> good evening board medications. any -- members.

my name is erin. in that capacity it's done with local independence. it's also done with regionals and what we call formula retail as well. tonight for me this is not about formula retail. it's about reliance, reliance upon an individual company or a corporation who follows the letter of the law and make commitments based on that and have those revoked. i'm concerned permanently what that would do with independent stores and only sharing that their commitments as determined by the city of san francisco with letters of determination as an example would do to our

neighborhoods. it's rather concerning. i request that you consider not revoking the permit. thank you oovm in -- any other public comment? >> seeing none we'll move the appellant for rebuttal. i'm going to ask you to hold on for 1 minute until commissioner fung is back.

>> thank you for your patience.

>> it's easy to think of jack spade as different. it's for men with a different name, sort of. it's understandable that we want to count this as no. 11. i would like to remind you that there is no such thing as jack spade llc. it's not a real company. it doesn't exist. we are talking tonight about one company, about one entity with 94 stores. there is no such thing as a jack spade employee. everyone that works in a jack spade store is a kate spade llc employee. you can call it kate spade outlet, saturday, new york. jack spade. it doesn't matter what you call it. all three of the first features of the planning code are shared by all 94 stores. one standard

array of apparel. spade is on every garment. one distribution center, no. 2, substantially similar trademark and no. 3 substantially similar service mark. >> to just drive that home, if we can have the overhead for a moment. the zoning administrator commented that we were looking for the two items of trademark and array standardized array. as you would see section 703.3 b requires only two elements. among those two separate independent freestanding elements are service mark and trademark. finding a common service mark and trademark alone you will get to formula retail. if you find that kate spade and jack spade shared a

mark, you can combine and count kate spade stores together with jack spade storts. -- stores. we have here kate spade service mark as you can see. which is by the way, if you apply for a trademark you apply for a category of goods sorry typically retail stores will have categories of goods. kate spade service mark, jack spade service mark, kate spade trademark, jack spade trademark and for good measure, >> i'm not following your argument. part of me i have a problem here is that i don't have documents in front of me.

you are putting these quickly on an overhead that i can't read. what are you saying that they are sharing the same trademark. i can't see it. >> i'm sorry. >> this is put up from the website. >> okay, they are all under the same. that's the point? >> the point is that kate spade and jack spade have both trade marks and service marks. they share a substantially similar mark. the spade mark. and that finding that you can combine and count kate spade together with jack and you will have -- >> are they linked under the same trademark number. just because they are under the same trade mark, doesn't make it the same. link it for me. is this

your interpretation of the code because i don't have that in front of me either. >> i'm trying to distill your question more. >> i'm trying to understand your argument here. let go back to the code section, what is it 703.3 and you are pointing out two of the -- >> section 703.3 b formula use, two or more of the following features. >> standarded array. >> let's begin at the begins of the sentence. >> formula use. can we make the illumination area larger? okay. is that legible? >> why is it that we didn't get any briefs? >> by the way, i'm a volunteer,

i'm not a paid attorney? >> why is it that we didn't get any briefs? >> on a jurisdiction request. you have no briefing on the merits here. >> i think the difficulty and president hwang is pointing out that we are at a disadvantage that nobody presented any briefs. any of your arguments we have not considered them in writing and we are struggling to give you a fair hearing but not having any of that background material is challenging to understand your argument at this point. >> if you are making an a textual argument. i understand the argument of the people in this room. the text i can't do without paper. >> the reason doesn't have it is we didn't know they were required. >> i'm trying to understand your argument. >> we didn't understand it

would be helpful. >> as a lawyer? i'm not going to blame you. it's late, you are making a textual argument. i don't have the paper. let's do it. >> okay. formula retail use is here by defined as a type of retail sales activity or retail sales establishment which along with 11 or more retail sales establishments in the u.s. maintains two or more of the following features. a standardized ray of merchandise, standardized facade and color scheme, decor, signage and trademark or service mark. >> then it itemizes them. the question is how do we count. if

we find the common marks and trade marks, they should be counted together and we would not get 10 stores. we would get this plus 94 of kate spade stores. the codas written supports a finding that there is a common mark on the law and on the letter of the law. i'm sorry that we didn't know that briefs would be useful. i'm sorry that as an torn i don't practice in this area. >> that's okay. i don't need an apology, i need to understand your argument. you then presented documents that have trademarks. what do i need to -- please put that back. i'm trying to read it while i'm talking. what premise do i need to accept before you get to the two or more? because jack

spade is under kate spade llc? that makes it one? >> no. what i think it's a far more simple face value which is as we and many of the public speakers noted. the public recognizes that kate spade and jack spade are one. >> okay. >> that there is the common feature of spade. and these printouts that i was showing you that they are both trademarks. >> they each have, jack spade has it's own service mark and kate spade has it's own service mark. >> if you want to look at the ownership. may i now move this. they are all owned jack spade trademark owned by kate spade llc. there is no intervening

entity. >> that's what i needed. >> so those are, if you can find, let me just stutter for one moment, there is also the spade mark owned by kate spade. >> okay. thank you. >> may i, can i also make a few more comments. >> yeah because i interrupted you. i'm sorry a little expression of frustration. >> i appreciate that. the one thing i will say, regarding -- i wanted to clarify this my good friend phil lesser i did -- i thought clearly the opposite. he also implied that i'm an attorney representing clients. no. i'm a neighbor and

a resident. i'm here na on a personal capacity helping my community and pitching the same battle. regarding the affidavit, i'm curious to know why they chose this because i prefer to have melissa and ceo who preferred to have jack spade be a million dollar enterprise. it seemed to be a much more effective source and much more reliable source. i can very easily go down a corporate chain of someone who doesn't know and have them write a letter for you and finally i do represent clients, i do entity formation and such. i have a lot of clients and they can't find' place to rent. there are plenty of spaces that are open but the landlords are holding the market for higher rent.

>> just to be clear when president hwang mentioned the lack of briefing, it was the same briefing submitted for the request. >> for the merits on the permits for that issue. >> there's no brief submitted by the permit holder. >> thank you. so we have rebuttal now from the permit holder. >> i don't have too much. the first thing i wanted to say that there is actually nod -- not a spade on any garment. there is not a logo on the product. we have design team. while we are locked into a legal agreement with the landlord and i can't speak about the rent but it's been

grossly overstated. in terms of who signed the affidavit, i didn't feel comfortable signing the affidavit because i don't sign any of our leases and i thought that would be a problem if i submitted the affidavit. so phillip is the vp of real estate and construction. he was the one that submitted the affidavit and made sure that was clear. thank you. >> thank you. >> mr. sanchez, anything further? >> thank you, scott sanchez on the planning department. with regards to trademarks, these are separate. jack spade has one, kate spade has another. it is true they are all owned by kate spade,