francisco sfgtv meeting of the san francisco small business commission occurring september 9, 2013, will begin shortly.

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>> commissioner adams. here. >> dwight. >> here. >> o'brien. >> riley. >> here. >> white. >> here. >> ortiz-cartagena is excused as well as ortiz and cartagena. >> and approval of the may, 6th

2, 013. item two, general public comment, do we have any members of the public that would like to make me comments on items pertinent to this commission that is not on today's agenda. >> seeing none closed. >> approval of the may 6, 2013 meeting minutes, this is an action item. >> move to approve. >> second. >> all in favor? >> aye. >> aye. >> next item. >> item number 4, approval of the july 22, 2013 meeting minutes. >> move to approve. >> second. >> all in favor? >> aye. >> item number five, approval of the august 12, 2013 meeting minutes, action item. >> approve. >> second. >> all in favor? >> aye.

>> item 6, discussion and possible action to make recommendations to the board of supervisors on board of supervisors file number 1 30789, health code, licensing and regulation of massage establishment and practitioners. and mr. president, we are fortunate enough to have supervisor tang here this evening. >> welcome supervisor. >> good evening, commissioners. there you go. >> okay, there you go, commissioners. >> district four supervisor. and so i wanted to be here today to talk a little bit about the legislation that we have here before you and it is really to address the enforcement issues that we have been having with the massage establishments in the city. for years the office has heard from the community about the potentially illegal activity taking place some of the massage establishments and we have seen the advertisements in the newspaper highlighting the alternative services that one

can receive at the local massage establishments we hope to accomplish two main things, number one is that we hope to codify pentties for the house do*eds codes, because when we found are the penalties are only recommendation and not actually in the public health code and these were actually previously determined by dph and so we are not changing what the penalties have been in the past and we are just codifying in the health code and number two, we would like to introduce the additional regulations concerning the massage establishment operations that are allowable under state law and so these additional regulations include, requiring that massage practitioners licensed by our department of public health to wear the photo identification card showing their certification and authorizing a denial of a permit to an applicant who has been convicted of crimes and providing for an appeal process

for anyone who is denied a permit. we would like to prohibit the sexual activity and consumption of alcohol and non-prescription drugs and also hope to notified the property owners not just the business owners of any health code violations received and so that they are aware of what is going on in their property. and also providing other health and safety requirements. which are in another piece of legislation that is under the review right now in the sponsor of the department of public health. >> when documenting this, we were mindful and careful about not putting potential victims of human trafficking in further harm's way and not to negative impact the establishments that are operating in compliance with the local and state and federal laws, as you know the office works with the local small businesses and only if you are properly licensed certified, and you are not going to be in violation of any

of these things that we have in our legislation, we don't anticipate any sort of impact on your business. and that we really do feel that this legislation is just a small component participating with the mayor's task force and the city departments and to figure out how we as local governments to do our parts to address the issues of human trafficking and so i am happy to answer the questions that you might have and also might want to make you aware that we have scott and richard from the department of public health to answer the questions as well as the san francisco police department commissioner questions? >> and sfpd, to making the arrest for the prostitution, prior to this legislation. >> and so, it is, i mean, that to answer the question, there are several issues that we

really noticed and one is that in 2008 there was a state law that was passed that set up a volunteering license board at the state level, the california massage council and so if you are a practitioner and you can be licensed through the state program and in essence if you have one establishment and every single massage practitionerer is licensed or certified through the state program and then you don't have to abide by any of the local laws, you are essentially freed from the local enforcement. and so, that has created a significant problem which we consider a huge loophole which we are trying to address at the state level because that state legislation is up for sunset review and in the next coming year and so, we are working with our state legislators and other jurisdiction to fix that.

we want to give the departments, the department of the public health the tools to catch these illegal activity and so for example, some of the board of hears is that we found that even though an inspector may have walked in on the sexual activity happening it was not codified in the health code and basically the practitioner was able to continue on with their practice because they had nothing in the code to go off to suspend their license or revoke their license. so that is why we have included several restrictions, additional regulations in our legislation before you. >> okay. >> commissioner dwight. i have two questions, does the law provide for a landlord who finds out that illegal activity is occurring in a building to evict their tenant and so our legislation does not specifically say that and this is why we wanted to include the additional notification to the property owner because actually at the federal level, under the federal laws if you are aware

of any sort of illegal activity, happening on your property, you could face some very severe consequences and human trafficking or prostitution is absolutely among those. >> okay. so this will allow you to assist the property owners in assisting you. >> yes. >> okay. and then, my other question was, what was my other question? >> oh,, whether these new rules that we are considering here, will allow you then, to deal with this situation, that is occurred with the state where the people are basically evading our rules by virtue of being approved at the state level? >> we think that it will help but it is not everything. for example in that 2008 state law that i passed it actually took away our local land use zoning control. which we think is very important in terms of how it is that we regulate how many of these establishments are popping up in the city over all and so we are, that is one

important piece that we hope to return, local jurisdiction to san francisco and so again, this is not the solution, for the issues that have been created by the state law but we hope that will help us to give us more tools to actually enforce. >> do we need to lobby at the state level? >> we would very much appreciate your support in that. >> okay. >> commissioner white? >> yes. in i remember correctly, the state practitioner license were harder to get, though, right? >> actually, our san francisco and dph certainly can speak to this but we actually require an exam. and the state certification does not. and there is, we recall the certain amount of hours? >> there is a deferring number of hours referred but on the local level we actually do have examples and the other problem is that even though you may be certified under more rigorous set of hours there is no local enforcement from the state officials, was there any possibility as far as making

the san francisco requirement at the state level in regards to the hours? >> i think that they have been considering that, but i will defer to dph to speak to them. >> okay. >> all right. >> maybe i will call them up at this moment. >> okay. >> good evening, commissioners my name is scott, and i am the program manager of the massage program at the department of public health. we have looked at the hours that are required but we feel that with our, or the written examination that we administer that we think that it actually tests what you learned in the classroom time. and so at this point, we definitely are, we are, we had no... and we were not for sure going to change the hours, because we have been pretty satisfied with the efficacy of the exam that we have been

administering. >> okay. >> okay. >> any other questions? >> well, how do you feel about this legislation? >> and the supervisor tang? >> well, we find that it is going to help us quite a bit, actually. because we felt that it would, it as the supervisor said, it codified many of the items that were policy, or in our rules and regulations, i think that it is the signs and the monetary and the permit penalties and i think that it really makes our job a little easier and when the case is heard before the director of health, that now there is written... it is in code now and what the penalty rs and so definitely strengthens and enhances our enforcement capabilities. >> thank you. >> any other questions? >> let's take it to the public comment, is there any public

here that would like to make the comments on item six? >> seeing none, public comment is closed. >> commissioners? >> are there, are there any objections from the community of those who are behaving themselves and to what you are proposing? does anyone who follows the letter of the law... or has a legitimate practice in do they object to this or are you burdening them in >> in coming up with this legislation, we really tried hard to reach out to establishments that we know are legitimate practitioners and we have heard feedback from them that they actually do not feel that this would burden them in any way. but, we also have heard from legal practitioners who are worried, and i think that the worries as an industry of the whole not to consider everyone who is in that industry as you

are a front for prostitution or human trafficking and not the approach that we are taking, and we hope that our office for example we did not try to increase the penalty of the finds, because we feel that you could put the practitioners in a worse possible and our goal really is just to give our own city enforcement agencies better tools, and not to vilify any sort of practitioners who are doing the right thing, following the law, and being certified appropriately. and so, i also really want to mention that this is not about addressing illegal prostitution. this is again, about human trafficking, and the massage establishments potentially serving as fronts for human trafficking and i think that is a whole separate conversation. but you may hear from some folks who may be concerned that you know, that you know, maybe advocates who want to legalize prostitution this is not addressing that. >> right, okay.

>> great. >> any other comments? or do we have a motion? this is an action item. >> public comment already? >> yeah. >> i will move to approve it. i don't see anything in here that is not behind what we would support. and it is not, i don't see it having a negative impact on small business which is a issue that we have to be concerned with. and i don't think that it is an impact on the legitimate businesses and based on the last response. and i think that we all would agree with any legislation, that is properly crafted that is targeting human trafficking and i think that we all find that offensive. no matter what background we are from or what possession in society we are from and i think that we would all not like that and so i would like to make a

motion to approve this as stated. >> we have a second? >> second. >> roll call? >> commissioner adams? >> aye. >> commissioner dwight. >> aye. >> o'brien. >> aye. >> riley. >> aye. >> white. >> aye. >> the item passes 5-0. >> good job and thank you very much for coming tonight. >> and welcome as a supervisor and this is the first time that you have presented as a supervisor and that is an a and so congratulations. >> i want to thank dph and sfpd for being here as well to support you on this, thanks. >> and mr. president, i move us on to item seven, discussion and possible action to make recommendations to the board of supervisors on board of supervisors file number 1 30784, business and tax regulations code and

administrative changes. and we have greg from the treasurer and tax collector here to present. >> welcome. >> good evening, commissioners my name is greg gatto from the office of the treasurer and tax collector. i will briefly go over the long piece of legislation that is our annual going through the article six in particular of the code and making those changes that are required and are to help us stream line the tax enforcement. and this year, it is quite important, actually, because, with the passage of proposition e, in 2012, that made a number of changes to the code and is that of course, as you are getting everything ready to go on the ballot you might be changing things and it needs to be cleaned up down the line and so we are making some changes, to that are in light of proposition e and also, we are stream lining some or the tax

collection regulations for property taxes. with the business registration fees, the one thing that did is it deleted the due date for renewing the business registration fees and delegating that back to the board of supervisors and so we are recommending the prior due date and so no changes in effect for anyone and it is just that the board will be setting the due date for that registration fee. and also for the business registration fees, roofers in san francisco, are required to obtain a tag from the office that they are supposed to post on the commercial vehicle and it costs them $30 and it is something of a, and it is not really, utilized a lot. and we found that, it is, quite administratively burden so many that they be required to keep a copy in the vehicle so that

anyone wants to be a registered business certainly they can be shown that information. >> we also made the changes to the penalties of the code. the code provides for the penalty of the business registration fees and that if you are one day late and that if you are a business that has $150 fee, you are paying a penalty if you are one day late in making your payment in addition to the fee. if it goes as high as $35,000 under proposition e, we thought that it might be punitive if you are one day late on your fees to have a $35,000 penalty and so what we are doing is establishing a minimum penalty of $100 or following the current rules, for all other

delen quint taxes. and up to 40 percent if you are over 90 days late and this will be a way to have a reminder and a penalty for those folks that are delinquent and not so large of a hammer on the folks that might have forgotten or were a day late. >> and we also, are making some proposed changes, with regards to how interest is applied to penalties, and in particular with the small business exemption under the payroll expense tax and currently the interest is added on to both the penalty and the fees, and the interest. and so, it accrues quite quickly for small business exempt entities and so we are proposing that the interest just apply to the penalty amount, and as it does with larger businesses, and number one, this is make it a slight reduction into the penalties and number two, since with the

gross receipt tax we anticipate that they will be moving in and out of the small business category as they might have more sales in san francisco one year verses another and this will allow us to track them, and if someone is delinquent and be able to have the right penalties rather than having to toggle back and forth. and there is also currently in the code an enhanced to penalty. and they have to under report the taxes. this is based upon a determination or a audit. and so this removes the penalty in our loophole in our penalty structure where someone could say i am not going to file for that year and then i will not have that additional penalty and often this comes up is we find out ab