i don't think it applies to the small businesses trying to make it here. i just don't think that the cup, i think it going to decimate us especially if building is involved. i appreciate you asking if we can go through a fire inspection. i think it's onerous and not realistic and it's going to decimate us. people are running scared already. the legislation needs a lot of work still. that's my opinion. thanks, you guys. >> thank you. >> do we have more public comment? is there anyone else that would like to provide public comment who hasn't submitted a card? seeing none, public comment is closed thank you all. i appreciate it. you are the leaders of your community so thank you for being here. all right. so,

commissioner riley? >> yes, i want to mention that -- [inaudible] the petition on this establishment. [inaudible] >> >> can i put up a diagram to show you the process? i just want to clarify that before sb 731 went in place and before people went through the

dph process they all went through this process. this is something we've been doing since the health department took over since the police department. basically what happens when you come in to get an application from the department of public health and there are certain conditions you need to meet. you need to have a business license and then we ask you for referrals. you can see the referrals are going to the planning department for a referral and that will determine making sure the location that if you open your business that it abides by the zoning code and if you need to go through a different process. the building department would have to fill out a referral form and they go in and do an inspection to look at making sure the electricity and plumbing and structure of the building is safe. this is not unique to massage

businesses, this is every business. i don't want people to think this is a punitive measure. this is supposed to be a protective measure for our residents and our visitors and businesses. likewise, the fire department comes in to look at ingres and regress and safety and spring sprinklers. we go through and verify it and check it and make sure you have no additional outstanding health violations of your business or any other business. if everything looks well, the permit would be issued. you know, from what i have been told, it's usually about a 60-day process. you know, if paperwork is not filled out correctly or if there is different things going on, i understand it could be a longer process. right now there is a couple of things we are

doing to change this. we understand all of these buildings are in different places. i understand you have to go to the building and health department. we are opening up a coordinated permit center in 2017 in 1 van ness. we are working toward this process to make it easy eefrment it will be a one stop shop. we are going to get there. >> okay. commissioner dooley? >> i wanted to say that i appreciate supervisor tang's agreement to increase to 500 hours. i think that's very important and i wanted to clarify that will apply to general establishment also? >> the 500 hours applies to the practitioner license, not to the business. so when the department of public health like cmtc issues licenses for practitioners, we will have

one practitioner license for cmtc and 500 hours in addition we require a test that are offered in multiple languages. you have to have 500 hours and pass a proficiency test and then you will be issued a practitioner license. anyone can own a business. they don't have to be a certified massage practitioner. just those certified practitioners do. >> i'm still concerned about this kind of lumping everyone together and i inside that's just to make it a set thing. but i do hear what everyone is saying and i think we are lumping true health care providers in with perhaps some more questionable people, and i do feel that they need more consideration.

>> is this division 2 classification which applies to health care providers does that apply to san francisco? >> that's a state code, a state business profession code. >> so if there was a move to include a class of massage practitioners in this division to classification that would have to be done at the state level? >> correct. >> that's another complication. does the city have any authority to designate a division to classification independent of the state? >> we do not. >> traditionally for most of our environmental health programs we can make more specific classifications but we don't have the ability to preempt. >> you can restrict but not

extend oovment i just wanted to clarify understate division code, massage therapy is under there but cmat is underneath that. >> i don't understand the distinction of that. so cmtc was created underneath the division too? >> that's from our understanding. >> i don't know what that means. division two is a classification. >> the cmtc corporation is under the division code, but it's massage therapist isn't recognized as a helts care worker. it list out health care workers specific to medical doctors and acupuncturist and the division 2 establishes the cmtc as being able to

provide voluntary practitioner license. >> so they empowered the cmtc but they did not empower them to ordain the people who pass their certification as division 2 practitioners? >> that's correct. >> understood. okay. i never thought i would know this much. commissioner riley? >> yes, when does the speaker have for the practitioner to have the same permit. if they operate under the same premises can it be done? >> first of all it's incredibly difficult not only on the permitting side. we had to convince the planning to let us have this permit for

people sharing the permit. for the actual implementation is very difficult. >> that's too bad. >> commissioners, any other questions? >> i have a question. >> commissioner sarkissian? >> i wanted to go back to the amnesty program and it's a little bit fuzzy in my mind. could we talk a little bit about what's going to take whether hospital or massage practitioners are going to be able to continue operating while they are complying and how much time are you proposing to give them. >> so sf govtv if i can just put the document on screen again. at the bottom you can see we are going to require that practitioner submit an application to dph permitting process

within 90 days of the effective date of the ordinance. so you only have to submit it within 90 days. if we can complete the process, hopefully you can complete it as soon as possible but we are not going to penalize someone for not completing it within the 90 days. you just have to show a good faith effort. and we will allow those to continue in operation while on going this process. our goal is to not put people out of business. >> much of the process depends on the responsiveness of these other agencies, correct? >> correct. we understand that. >> as long as the application is in within 90 days, the practitioner can continue his or her trade? >> exactly. yes. >> and of course if they meet these requirements as i spelled out. >> right.

>> commissioner cartagena? >> i want to thank both sides actually. i like to see thorough engagement from both sides. supervisor tang, amazing outreach and the massage community. you are out here and i really appreciate it. i as a small business owner think also criminal will be criminals. that's their business and more regulations is not going to stop them. that's what they do as a profession. i'm saddened to see that the massage industry has to go through burdensome bureaucracy that is not going to have an impact on the illegal businesses. no one wants them trafficking in the city. where is the police involvement. i know they do a background check, but what involvement do they have on the enforcement side as an on going part of this?

>> we do not address the police department on this legislation. as you know back in 2000 the jurisdiction of enforcement was transferred from sf p.d. to dph. that was a decision made by the supervisor on the board at that time. the police involvement now has to do with the task force inspections. they are sometimes consisting of dph inspector, police, sometimes city attorney, sometimes planning. so that is their involvement now. it's miniscule compared to what it was before when it was under the enforcement of the police department. >> surely law enforcement is engaged and responsible for the enforcement of prostitution and antihuman trafficking laws. that can't be -- to the department of laws.

>> the transfers of jurisdiction occurred in the first place because we heard from the community that they did not want to criminalize the massage industry. so hence dph is now enforcing but they are only given a set of tools as highlighted so hence there are other tools that we are now trying to give to our departments because it is no longer under sf p.d.. there are limited ways we can now regulate and we are in constant communication with the mayor's task force against human trafficking where the police department, d. a. and non-profit providers are all continuously engaged for how we provide the back end support for potential victims, how it is we really address some of the cases that do arise. again, dph is only given a set of tools to work with. >> if i can add, i know the process of getting a permit and i'm all for going

through permitting process if that's in line with the similar industries in the profession. the only thing we all know that small business conditional use is a killer. >> what is that called? >> cb 3p. >> if that qualifies for the expedited conditional use process. for me that would be the biggest thing. the fee is part of the cost of doing business special fully san francisco. but with cu and the rents rising and the landlords having the opportunity to rent to so many people, the c u is a place for business. i know supervisor tang you have done an amazing

job on your outreach. i wonder if we can explore that further. >> to expedite the program, they had set certain types of businesses or types of businesses to be able to go through that expedite process. currently massage is not in there. we are happy to continue that conversation, it's not part of it right now. i think the larger picture with the planning department today in general is how is it that you are really better support the smaller businesses citywide across the industries. that's something they have been looking at. they hired additional planners, like a dozen of them and they have programs for small types of businesses that maybe don't have to go through commissions. so i'm very interested in looking forward to that bigger conversation where again, massage would be included as part of that. the second issue is that

you spoke about in terms of outreach in making sure people are aware of this proposal for conditional use process. this has been the process for many many years until 731 came into place. the other thing i want to highlight about it is that our office actually sent out a letter to 200 establishments about this and talked about the conditional use permit. by law i'm only allowed to send out 200 so we are missing 50 establishments. this is more outreach that i have done on any piece of legislation. i have never sent out 200 pieces of mail about a legislation. we have gotten a few phone calls and inquiries about what this would mean for their businesses and tried to walk them through it. after these

calls they are okay and not impacted because many of them are sole practitioners. i was hoping that more different businesses would come out. i have not seen them. again the ones who have been different and calling us, we've been trying to address their questions as much as we can. so in terms of outreach, i have tried. you know, they choose whether they want to show up or not and i understand there may be some fear but that's the only way we can have a two way conversation on this. >> okay. thank you. >> thank you. >> commissioner white? >> yes, my question again goes back to the amnesty program because i'm trying to think in my head, if i signed a ten year lease and i can't get my permit to pass to complying, what will happen to the small business owner that is stuck in that lease? like what's going to happen to that individual?

>> our legislation does not address that. fortunately and unfortunately we are not able to address the private contractual agreements between the landlord. i'm hoping that situation never arises. i can't not speak to it from a legislative perspective. except wore wer going to try to everything we can to make sure the legitimate process follow this business. >> it seems like there should be some sort of -- >> it's not something we can legislate because it's a contractual agreement. >> is that enough time to get all the permitting done? >> just to submit the application. >> so there is no limit. this

is my question, so how much time do they have to actually, they turn it in in 90 days but if it takes an entire year to get a cu, they are still able to operate senate #2ksh -- at that time? >> we hope it doesn't take a year, but our goal is to get people efficiently through this. >> okay. any other commissioner comments? >> i had just a question supervisor. you mentioned 200, you had an outreach to 200 establishments. so there are 250 in the city licensed establishments? >> roughly at least in the data base they have. they could have been permitted through dph or filed an exemption because they were cmtc

certified. it's a mix of the two. obviously we've been communicating at the mail with the stakeholders. but we did try our best. if they want part of this discussion through a mailed letter to these businesses. >> how many licensed individual practitioners? >> maybe you can answer that? >> again, i would just emphasize that the numbers we have are the people who complied and filed other exemption or permits through dph. this is one main goal of our legislation is to get everyone in the system which currently we do not have. >> thank you. >> you know, outreach is extraordinarily difficult. whether it's my class of business manufacturing. i know whenever we have a group of professionals that are affected by legislation, it is very common that

only a small percentage of them actually engage and understand what's going on. it's vitally important that you as the leaders of your profession outreach beyond that. as we heard, 200 letters is not a lot. there is a supervisor asking for something i don't care about and you pitch that letter, you miss that communication. so i think it's a little short sided to think there is going to be punitive action against someone who wants to engage in the process and understand what the impact is on their business. i encourage you to encourage your colleagues to engage. what if all the seats were filled here and what if everybody was, you know, making cogent points about the topic at hand?

that's what democracy is all about. so don't go and hide and don't say i'm too busy to get engaged. that's the common frame of a small business owners. i'm too busy. guess what, we are all small business owners and we are volunteering our time to be here. you are small business owners and volunteering your time to be here. that's the way we engage. no one is an expert in your field. we are experts in our own field. we have dived into this to under your business and in the supervisors office, we had a meeting and i thought i was a heart is -- smart guy and i got schooled. i didn't know that the supervisor can only send out 200 letters. we have a couple more questions from our commissioners. commissioner riley?

>> i'm just going to go back and answer questions about the practitioners. these are rough estimates. i believe the department of public health has issued 1300 practitioner licenses and we have requested that from cmtc, they had approximately 1700 but there is duplicates. they are more difficult because they have the home address of the practitioner and they don't always know where they are practicing if their information is not updated. that's my rough estimate on the practitioner. >> most of that class is not affected by what we are discussing here today. they subject to the existing laws which they may not be in compliance with, but this, we are talking about here today does not affect because of the work by the supervisor and the department of public health to exempt the sole practitioner. so the bulk of them are not. we are talking very specifically about a group of 200-250 which

the supervisor has attempted to outreach. i think it's important to acknowledge the people who are not engaged may not need to be engaged. there is not going to be any surprises for them, but it is vitally important for those who are affected are engaged. commissioner riley? >> yes, my question is what kind of authority does the dph have over these massage parlors? i know you can shutdown a restaurant if they are not in compliance, can you do the same thing? >> so previous to the state law, the dotdz had department of public health was permitting and we had authority to revoke or spend them. when sb 31 went into place it took away the authority for businesses who had cmtc

certified practitioners. now we would he about able to go in there and close it if there is something illegal. >> if there is something illegal you would follow up on that. >> if there is a high risk violation we would bring in the staff for administrative hearing and we would have to hear testimonies from the police department and the establishment and we would hear that process and if there is evidence we would revoke their permit and they still have an at some point to go to the board of appeals and appeal that division. it goes through an entire administration process. >> if there was crime involved would you do the initial inspection?

>> usually what happens when we get complaints about illicit activity or human trafficking that gets on our task force. we go out with the police department and fire department on these random task forcen expectations. at that time the police is is there. they don't typically arrest the people but they are attempting to building larger cases against human trafficking. we are not trying to be punitive to people who are being exploited and victimized. we are trying to build cases against these organizations to close down establishment. >> you are the first line of offense and you call in other agencies as required? >> of course. >> okay. any other commissioner questions or comments? all right. so,

>> so commissioners, >> this is the point where we would make some recommendations. i think what my important take away from the discussions i have been having all day today and now here is that one, it is a work in progress. a lot of stuff is probably decided or kind of immutable because the planning department has their way of doing things, the health department has their way of doing things and people have got their opinions about what's going to happen and what's going to come down. but it isn't a law yet. it isn't finalized yet. in fact my understanding is that legislation has been, there has been a delay to work out some more details, good news. okay because slowing down the process a little bit so everyone can engage and make themselves heard and so we can learn more is very important. at this point i feel i have to say a little bit more

comfortable than last time. i felt that i was chasing a train down the tracks, i maybe standing in front of it, i'm not sure. but i feel that we are being heard both the small business commission and the massage professional is being heard. i don't know where we go from here in terms of the process for you supervisors, maybe you could inform us because i think, you know the worst part is the uncertainty. we don't know -- all know how to legislative process works. >> we are looking for a recommendation here. if you agree with it or part of it, we would love to hear that. we explore every alternative that we could. the next step from here is it will go to land use committee. scheduled for april 20th and

most likely may and then go to the board of supervisors for two readings before it takes effect. >> what open issues do you see at this point? what are you still working on? >> we have largely tried to shape the amnesty program. for the large part what we have shared with you today already shared at land use committee in terms of the conditions. in terms of the conditional use requirement i have her the from the businesses if there is owner ship that is also cmtc certified there may be some exemption for the process for them. unfortunately we are not able to pursue that because there are also establishments out there that have exactly that structure and have violated the laws. it's not as easy as

saying the legitimate ones we'll apply the standards to you and the illegitimate ones we'll apply different standards for you. >> did you talk about that or in general agreement? >> yes. we've explored. i can't tell you how many different permutations of this legislation already. >> okay. now build into legislation is the notion of a 3-year review, is that correct? >> that's correct. so this is not, i know we got some calls where people were concerned that this meant you are on a probation period for 3 years, that's not the case. if you were granted a permit from the planning department you are subject to after 3 years they look at check to make sure there are no violations in place and make sure you are up and up and it's not that you are on probation for 3 years. >> is