>> good afternoon and welcome to a special meeting of thursday, december 4th, of the board of supervisors. neighborhood services and safety committee, my name is david campos and i am the chair and we are joined by committee vice chair, supervisor eric mar and we want to thank the clerk of the committee, derek evans as well as the following members of sfgtv staff, who are covering this meeting, jennifer low and jessy larson, with that, mr. clerk, do we have any announcements? >> thank you, mr. chair, make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic device and completed speaker cards to be included in the file should be submitted by the clerk, items acted upon today will be on the december 14th, board of supervisor's agenda unless otherwise stated. >> before we move on to the one

item, i know that norman yee is excused from this meeting, could we have a motion to excuse him? so we have a motion without objection. >> mr. clerk, if you could call our one item? >> item isordinance amending the health code by adding density, proximity, and sales establishment limitations on the granting of new tobacco sales permits, and renumbering all sections in article 19h; amending the business and tax regulations code by increasing the annual license and application fees; and making environmental findings. >> great, thank you very much. and this is an item that has been introduced by supervisor mar, and it is co-sponsored by supervisor kim and wean and her we want to thank supervisor mar for his leadership and i know that we have a number of young people and community members who are here and thank you for being here and, welcome to the

board chambers and i really appreciate chair campos for being here and for adjusting the schedule as an example of the youth commission's leadership for just to give a stronger voice and the respect to young people, and for your advocacy and organizing and this is an ex-siding day sxim here with amazing leaders that are about the future of our community's and the healthy communities and the younger people with a stronger voice in city hall, i call this a tobacco license reduction act. and there is other names for it, but that is the easy way for me to remember this. and it is legislation that has come about from you think that karin was discussing this since 2008, but it is really the result and the sweat and the blood from youth organizing and i am just going to stand right now, and just honor the amazing young people from the tobacco

youth reduction force, whether they were working from city college san francisco, state or the high schools that you came from, supported by youth leadership and institute or the vietnamese youth development center but you are a great example of creating policy from the bottom up and educating all of us to make the communities healthy and better and so i am just standing up to give you tremendous props as we introduce this legislation today. >> thank you, chair. [ applause ] >> so this policy, i think, is an example of the tireless focus, leadership, research and commitment to the city's public health by the young people and the tobacco free coalition as well. without their efforts we would not be here today. this initiative and this act will set san francisco as the city with a strongest comprehensive effort to limit tobacco licenses in our communities and there is about

1,000 right now, according to the research, and this is a reasonable way to limit them over time so that we protect the health of our community and in san francisco, low income areas, especially communities of color and the communities with a large number of young people have a disproportionate concentration of tobacco permits compared to other neighborhoods, for example, in jane kim's district, which includes the tender loin, there is approximately 270 permits, or stores that are selling cigarettes and other types of products and that was in 2011. compared to only, 37 in the inner sunset area of district seven in norman yee's district and or only, 51 in the marina area of san francisco and supervisor farrell's district and this effort will help to address this disparity, by protecting young people, and preventing the sales of

cigarettes and tobacco products around schools but also protecting vulnerable communities by not allowing the number of permit to rise before a certain level and gradually reduce these permits and i also wanted to say that this tobacco reduction act is part of our broader effort and so the coalition from the tobacco free coalition and others it is part of our broader community and public health approach that is creating healthier sf retail and corner stores and really are doing away with and limiting and ending the sales of junk food, cokes, and smokes as well, so i feel like this is a really, positive effort to create healthier option and to limit the harmful ones as well. also, when we looked at the equity and i know that we will have speakers that will show some of this inequity and why this is a way and protecting

the vulnerable communities and youth but we will look at maps of san francisco and where the tobacco licenses are and where the sales are, especially around low income communities and where young people have access as well. our department of public health staff and i want to thank them, and they are amazing and so great to work with. but they are leading the country in many ways, in showing what cities can do, but our department of public health staff, they emphasize that tobacco use is the leading cause of death in in our city and in our country. we spend in san francisco, nearly 400 million dollars a year, on the cost related to tobacco, and tobacco addiction as well. and that is about 625 dollars per san francisco resident, and 625 dollars per person based on the addictions to smoking and the hooking of young people in some ways to addictions like

smoking. the youth leadership institute did a great survey, over the past few years, 2014, survey though of san francisco residents showed that nearly 84 percent of respondents support the policies like this one that reduce the concentration of tobacco retailers and the tobacco sales. and nationally, and researchers from stanford and ucsf, they will emphasize in a moment, that the greater the exposure to tobacco outlets or the stores that sell tobacco, the more likely a neighborhood is at risk for tobacco related deaths, and disease, and those cost related to it. specifically low income communities, but i will just emphasize again there is a racial justice and it is largely people of color and immigrants as well and so the researchers will emphasize that higher exposure to tobacco density or these stores clustered together sometimes in low income neighborhood also result in youth increasing

smoking rates as well. so i think that we will hear a lot of research and relevant research as well. our tobacco license reduction act will over time through attrition reduce the number of licenses throughout san francisco, and we estimate that over ten to 15 years we will reduce the number of licenses in half. and i think that is an amazing accomplishment if we can do that with this legislation. and it does this by creating a cap of 45 licenses predict and that is based on the data that we will see, any new permits must be located 500 feet away from a school and i think that is an important one of protecting young people and students from being addicted to smoking and all of the marketing and targeting of young people by the various ecigarette companies and tobacco companies as well. also, this act, also, limits

these licenses, 500 feet away from a tobacco retailer and it is limiting the types of sales in communities, and no new permits for any restaurant or bar, and no permits in any location, and it also includes key provisions that protect the business owners by preserving the value of the stores and allowing them to sell the businesses without being adversery impacted by the regulations, i want to thank the association, and kamel and others for giving us a lot of input for this legislation to make it sensitive to the small businesses as well. and this act was crafted in coordination with the tobacco free coalition that has led the efforts over the years, and in addition to the stake holder groups as i mentioned, our department of public hel and this many community advocates this tobacco license reduction ordinance is part of a coordinated effort that includes healthy retail sf that

addresses health equity and supports the small independent businesses and strengthens our community. and i would also like to thank the co-responsers, supervisor jane kim for district six and scott weiner from district eight and our former president, and who worked with the young people and empowering them as well and the youth leaders that i mentioned earlier from the tobacco youth reduction force and a number of them will speak in a moment. but i wanted to specify the arab american and also, to shaeb, and for giving us such great input and nick from my staff as well from corraling everything together and really crafting with our city attorney, and this important

piece of legislation. and lastly, from the department of public health, the amazing leadership of susanna and derek smith as well. [ applause ] >> i wanted to just wrap up before turning it back over to supervisor campos, to say that this tobacco license reduction act will reduce drastically the number of tobacco sales outlets and it will advance health justice and health equity in a very common sense way and it will put our city back on the map as one of the strong leaders in the country that supports youth empowerment and healthy communities as well. let me ask if he has any remarks before i look to the speakers that we have >> thank you, i want to thank you for your leadership and your staff and all of the work

that has gone into this in this broad community that has pushing this issue forward. and i appreciately want to thank the young people for the important role that they have played. and i also would like to be added as a co-sponsor and it is important for us to be a lead when her it comes to these issues and it is gratifying to me to see the role that young people are playing, in making this issue a priority and i am proud of you. and very happy to be supportive of this effort and so with that i will turn it over to you and i know that you have a number of speakers so that we can hear from them. >> the first is san francisco city doctor eragon from our department of public health. and susanna labery a leader of a lot of the efforts in the department of public health. >> i am with the department of public health and the public division and also, the staff

healthy sf and our goal is to reduce this proportion of exposure to tobacco outlets in san francisco, we know that the more exposure the more at risk a community is to tobacco related health disparity and so this legislation will minimize the exposure in all district and create a level playing field. while the tobacco related public health crisis effects all districts, it is in san francisco's interest to address this over concentration of outlets in many of our neighborhoods. and this sends a message of approval and so think of it for a minute of the children walking through the tender loin in district six with hundreds of permits, that is more than 3 times the number in marina, it is saying that it is okay to use these products that this is the norm. and social and unacceptable has been shown to help with norms

and children and young people are experienced by cues that smoking is acceptable, all members of the community are affected. other research shows that communities are lower economic status and higher tobacco density have higher levels of individual smoking and my colleague, gary will illustrate this. this is a health equity issue, it is for these reasons that the institute of medicine has called for the development and the implementation for the legal mechanisms for restructuring the retail sales and restricting the number of tobacco out let's like we are doing today. supervisor mar, covered all of the different elements to reduce the density and the cap at 45 predict and no new permits in the new location and the distance requirements it will not be made for available for retail food stores and it will be in existence for five years but also to a child of an

existing permit holder. and i also want to agree with the supervisor and mention that this recognizes the critical role played by the corper store owners in our communities. we have met repeatedly over the past six months with the arab grocer's association to craft a formula that addresses our public health goals and meets the needs of small business. we are working hard with the coalitions, to assist corner store owners in becoming healthy retailers. we help them improve the physical environment with produce bins and units and help them strengthen and engage the community, and reuse this to reduce the tobacco density is a

comprehensive approach to strengthen community and support businesses and promote the over all public health. thank you very much. >> we also have gary way, also in the department of public health. >> all right, good afternoon, supervisors, my name is gary way with the