understand having three dispensaries back to back, but there are different reasons for that being some may be just the accessibility, some may just be the climate of the dispensary that particular person wants to go to. the is not -- is important as the idea of having the option of safe access and being that san francisco is supposed to be a pioneer in the medical cannabis community, in so far as, allowing folks to turn around and be unhindered with getting their medicine. i think you should take a look at first broadening the degree zone as well as taking time to way wait to the planning commission is finished with their assessment and making a

judgment where everyone is inclusive in the decision. thank you. good afternoon supervisors. i'm a former member of the the medical cannabis task force. i'm a lifelong resident of san francisco's mission district and i went to high school and spent many of my teenage years in /sels that the city is going to impose on any medical cannabis dispensaries. i'm hear today to talk about a continuing discussion over eight years old on what's reasonable for our green zones. i cannot agree without understanding and seeing what green zone map is going to look like. i have similar for the murder that you discussed as i too witnessed two people be killed at the age of 15, but that had

nothing to do with the area dispense i could not find the agenda on line and i was very confused when the written notice on item number three had no mention of medical cannabis dispensaries. i find that very deceitful. i also have concerns about the 500 foot restriction in the cluster. the cluster is a result of our current regulation as a consequence of what you guys put in writing. i also feel that [inaudible] quality selection and price. please do not enforce further restrictions until we have a steady and we consider what this will really do for our city. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker. i'll call more cards.

brent, theresa cooper, jason bennett, dominique johnson, albert blaze, aj martinelli, a rchie. >> my name is denice and my father mily are immigrants who immigrated from /skapbd knave ya in the 1920s and they immigrated to the chicago in a culture of prohibition. a culture of prohibition affected my family very profoundly. there were no jobs kinda like right now. the banks were out of control, we had a prohibition culture. it destroys communities. i had to, like, immediately -- well, it was a long process of realizing that i'm in this

culture of prohibition and and i'm not letting it take me down. cannabis is getting better press than ever now and it's getting better press than prescription drugs lately because it's on the right side of history. the booze of prohibition was on the wrong sides of history and we need to leave that behind. i am against this legislation in all due respect. i respect the author of the legislation very much and i agree with him very often, but this time i don't. thank you very much for listening and for your time. bye bye. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> i'm zach with the cannabis club network. 90 percent of the city is [inaudible] and i don't think we need to impose more restrictions on the available states that we already can use. i think we need to study the green zone and see what we can

do to expand it, make it larger, before imposing any new restrictions. thanks. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hi, brent, patient here in san francisco, thanks for your time in taking comment. as a the 22 year resident of san francisco i appreciate the way our town works and the way everyone works together to shape and mold the personality of each different community and that's an important part of your guys' job and i appreciate that. today as i was listening to you describe in the why and how and what you planning with the proposal it made sense to me and i agree with the reasons /tpwhaoeupbdz it and even partially with a solution to it. except for one thing, the green zone forces everyone to certain /kwreurs of town they're

allowed to provide patients access. we look at these as another store on the side of the road that's providing product to patients. but a collector is a group of patients working together to provide for each other their medicine. if they're only allowed to do that in certain /spaeupbss, lending them only to other groups that would sell them cannabis doesn't provide them safe access. by limiting access to the spaces where collectives can work together it is limiting access, even if it doesn't seem like hey, there's already a couple places on the block that will sell you cannabis. collective isn't just about that sale. i wanted to throw that into the equation when con sidsering what's going to be done with this pro/soez proposal. i thank you for doing what you

do. >> hello. i'm justin. i've worked here about [inaudible] thank you for

your time. >> thank you, next speaker please. >> hello, my name is albert blaze and former task formember and we eve been worried about the federal government not letting us have medical cannabis. we can't beat them unless we have numbers. we don't have dispensaries we don't have numbers. it's not about, like, in 2016 the governor wants adult use. well, that's not now. we gotta worry about now. i just think that if you say this one can be and this one can't, then control. and if there's one, and they don't sell a lot and make a lot of money, it's not about the money, it's about the patients

and patients need afford ability and affordability comes with competition. thank you. >> hey supervisors, i'm a veteran and medical cannabis patient. i don't know why you decided to read three and four together today instead of one at a time 'cause we would definitely like to put off anything doing with three until we hear back from the planning and other departments. we support the full intent of number four, the community stakeholders being equal and a fair process so that we -- as we do move forward with positive way when new locations come up available for

permitting that the previously closed down due to federal regulations be allowed to step back in line and get back into a place of operation so they can serve the patients that have been so patiently waiting for them to settle again and have a nice nest to work from to help everybody that needs their help. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker please. i'm going to call a few more cards. barbara nunez, tom burnheim, michael goldman, angie, ben manton, lieu lisa. >> good evening, my name is [inaudible] and you guys have a heart you'll listen to me real hard. i have aids and it hurts, okay?

i need my medicine. thank you. >> hello, my name is hector torres. i'm an access to love member and i'd like to give my opinion to continue to regulate and not discriminate the medical cannabis community more than what it's been taken such as [inaudible] was justly took from the community. we've been suffering a lot of blows lately. the cannabis community -- whatever the green zone planning commission is, please do not hurt the medical cannabis community more than what has been taken. we've taken two black eyes. we've been getting punched and stomped and put on the side and no respect. the cannabis community's not out to pollute any neighborhoods. we're there to serve medical

purposes that some day you might need as an elderly. you know, we need to evolutionize. san francisco started it all, they opened the doors. look at colorado recreational use. when i go to la there's more cannabis community than 7-elevens and mcdonalds. the city is all about the love. have a good heart, do the right thing. let's not only do things for our political reasons. it's all about the love, do not discriminate. let's evolutionize and accept cannabis as a community and part of our society.

thank you. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> yes, my name is archie. i have to oppose it because i don't understand why you would limit the amount of medicine available to people who need cannabis. it's just like walgreen's. i've seen four, five walgreen's within a two, three block period. it's all about supply and demand. if they're not making -- they're not getting enough people in to stay in business, then they're not going to stay there anyway. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> my name is barbara nunez. i flew in thursday from hawaii because it is a state that's legal for cannabis there's no

access like we have here in california and san francisco. i really wish that the ones that did go down would come back up and we're patients, not customers. there are some dispensaries -- next customer, next customer and i will never go back to those 'cause i'm not a customer, i'm a patient. i just recently got diagnosed with something that i don't really want to say, but to take it away from me would devastate me. i live in i have to travel into the city for any type of med icine. my income got cut because of me being in california and the government not doing the money wise going back to hawaii. she's even doing cannabis now

and medicinal rub and she's really amazed at what the rubs can do for you. i left her butter and stuff like that behind. she's very sick now. i'm here and i'm always going to be here in this movement and i just hope we can get it together and put up dispensaries for areas. some people can't travel that far or are scared of being robbed on the road or buses. that /hapbs. you have to pack it well. i had it happen to me once. it's nothing fun and nice. hopefully we can get it regulated and keep our movement going. thank you. >> good afternoon. i live in district two, i work at the chronicle building, i'm a medical marijuana parent. this is the first time i'm participating in this forum.

if you believe that medical marijuana is a drug that can be used to help so many people, therefore we should try to make an effort to make it accessible. the district i live in there are no clubs. the fab factors has failed and now the state of california is in process of letting thousands of low crime offenders and by having medical marijuana dispensaries in safe locations accessible to the public -- what you're doing is taking that money out of the criminal elm, putting in the community, putting as part of a collective, helping out local patients. a lots of people are not foreign nate like us that can take the time to see you and talk to you in the middle of the day. these people are disabled, they need to ride the bus, and i don't think it's fair to have all those things in one concentrated portion of the city. i love san francisco, i love the progressive views and as a

state that has adopted medical marijuana, we ask that air legislature and city supervisors at least make this accessible to the masses as opposed to blocking it down and bringing more regulations at a time where we're just about to get this out to the public and get more patients to use it. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker. math, nicholas smiley, cj russell, patricia. >> my name is tom, i want to make aware that there are a lot of patients the clubs do

provide ref knew for the city. there are tax. the more clubs, the more help to the city. i've gone to a totally different neighborhood just to get away from a club that i've gone through that i know i'm going to be in a long line, there's a long line of patients, a long wait. i'll definite -- i'll /tkhrebtly go to another neighborhood and spend time on a bus to go to a club and i get there disappointed because they're also in demand of more clubs because they're also crowded. i want to point out it's revenues for the community and thank you for your time. >> my name is michael, i was a member of the medical cannabis task force [inaudible] and patient [inaudible] committee.

and [inaudible] i'm in support of number four here, but number three, i first of all very upset as [inaudible] said it makes no reference to medical cannabis so a member of the public that didn't know what was going on today would be blind sided by this. there's no real appropriate /tphoetsz given that this is about restricting medical cannabis access. i think there is serious problem. i think it's a problem when you refer to a sense of unease in the community. think that's discriminatory and i feel it's really a very negative thing to say. we're people, parents and if people feel uneasy that are about medical cannabis users, that's their problem, not our problem. there really aren't enough dispensaries in the city. there could be more, that's why number four is important. the reason for the clustering in the green zone is because the rest of the city doesn't have safe access. addressing them before will alleviate many of your surgeons about density in the number

three, but at the same time how many walgreen's do you have in your district and how many coffee shops and other stores you have no objection to, but yet no more than three cannabis dispensaries? i think that's absurd. thank you. >> my name is lisa, i'm going to be the first speaker in support of your legislation today. i am a resident of the proper amazon district and i'm here to say that i support this proposed neighborhood commercial district and i support severely limiting the density of mcd's in this neighborhood. we have the highest concentration of children and elders in the entire city. our main street suffers from graffiti and now at risk youth. my life has already been impacted by it. i no longer walk down mission south of geneva after walking

there with my 7-year-old, seeing people standing on the street saying i just want to smoke weed all day, which is not something you want to expose a 7 /kwraoerpld child to. i am avoiding streets in my neighborhood. our lives /#r busy with work and parenting. we've participated in tree plantings, restoring rundown property. in what little too many underfunded public schools. we do not have the free time to constantly battle each and every new on mission and geneva streets. if we are using our limited en/skwrer influences we'll have nothing left overto create positive change. i ask you this, if it is not a business you'd like to see a block from your houses, do not guilty approve it for the

excelsior area. we deserve permanent protection, internet gambling and other businesses that are not family friendly. thank you. >> next speaker please. all sides, can we refrain from booing or clapping. it just helps for people to feel more comfortable to speak. >> we've been active in the community since 2003 working with city hall to write regulations, also working with supervisor daily when john avalos was [inaudible]. we're thankful for your continued support. we're troubled by this pro/soez sal and understand the concerned constituents. there needs to be a policy discussion about locations in san francisco. i want to

know, and we need to know why we're rushing ahead before the planning didn't concludes their study before even considering this perceived clustering problem in the city has been caused by the restrictive zoneing issues, which needs to be addressed and expanded. san francisco has a history of mcd's around we're an example to everyone, so if we create restrictive policies that will echo throughout the united states. we hope you will delay this ordinance until the planning department makes the final -- on a personal note, please encourage all politicians that have tried to back up the medical aspirations of patients, do not enact dispensaries, strip clubs .

>> thank you. just a response. i'm concerned about residents, i'm concerned about conditions and what i did say i'm opening comments was that we do have conditions that are increasing of negative businesses and if we actually had our district going in the other direction where we were actually seeing a greater diversity of businesses coming in i don't think the mcd's coming in i don't think mcd's would be that big of an issue. that's something that i think as a supervisor i need to really be conscience of and aware of and stand up for. it's unfortunate that people feel this is about targeting mcd's. that is not my intention, but i can see how you can make that conclusion. >> my name's theresa cooper, i'm with access of love.

i've served on the medical cannabis task force, the patient advocacy committee. i have a friend who owns a dispensaries, i've worked there several times. what i know is the planning department wants to increase the green zone. i'm sorry mr. avalos, but that is true. and i don't know why you're railroading this whole ordeal to get your way. people that smoke medical cannabis are disabled and poor and taking a look at the mayor's comment on the homeless situation, you know, he's not scoring real high. so in my mind you're not scoring real high because when i tried to talk to you about medical cannabis when you were running for mayor you didn't have time to talk about it. you said you'd talk about it when you became mayor.

i'm concerned about some of the views and that you would take on your district. if we look back to caramel, denice schmidt was taken off that policeation. there was a lot of pr going on in the streets so i'm not really believing the complaints. i think that you are possibly going in with other people to turn against our community. we need medical cannabis dispensaries, that's a fact. and the poor and disabled are the ones using those services to consider who you're impacting really. >> i'm here today because i want to bring to your attention what i believe is an important need for a time-out. i believe that this issue of increasing the restrictions on

the placement of cannabis dispensaries comes too soon in advance of a citywide study that's logical. secondly, i've been a long advocate in the central neighborhoods of san francisco. mid market street in the tenderloin and for a long time, in fact from one of the first days that i drove into san francisco, i looked at market and i thought i wonder why this mid market is in such a depressed condition when surrounding neighborhoods are growing with such great advances. well, it didn't take reducing the number of medical dispensaries for cannabis to bring about a resurgence in mid market. it didn't bring about reducing the number of cannabis dispensaries to increase the diversity of businesses. what was necessary was both the economic and social factors. coming together, along with the support, not the restriction

from our supervisors and mayor, but the support of our supervisors and mayor to move in the right direction. if we want to legislate for good neighborhoods, we don't legislate against things, we legislate for things. we try to move in the direction that is positive. you mentioned that you didn't want us to link all these bad uses and felt bad about that, but /tp-fs your opening comment that linked the uses of medical cannabis with internet gambling. none of us have those connections in our minds. i believe a time-out is necessary, i believe some cooler heads are beginning to enter the discussion. i believe if we were to have a couple of weeks and maybe even a month, we would be here with a much more united voice to have some ideas that will actually work. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> my name is nicholas, i'm a san francisco american's for safe [inaudible] director at

spark in san francisco here. i work in a dispensary that is less than 500 feet away from another dispensary and what we've seen with having two dispensaries there together is a much improved block over what was there prior. i started working there before we were opened, the neighborhood was a lot different. we've only helped that with our security, presence in our neighborhood. the we need more access throughout the city and to simply say that you can't have anymore dispensaries in one district while not granting any opportunities for dispensaries to open anywhere else in the city isn't fair. it's not the right way to start a process of opening up the green zone. we need to start with not a negative, and start with a positive and move ar