some leniency. that renewal, that permit was renewed to 13pk055c0 which expired in february of 2013. after this renewal further complaints in the forms of requests for actions or rfa's and phone calls were received. you can see those in exhibit g and h. those complaints revolved around the same items no maintenance late operation, further allowing the use of huka smoke within the parklet. the department then contacted the parklet host multiple times with no response. after no response, the public works decided to schedule a public hearing to consider the issue. that hearing was held on march 26 of 20134 and as a result the hearing officer granted 60 days to address the renewal and mitigate the issues and minimize the complaints that were being received. after this, a follow-up e-mail was sent to the parklet tho*es remind of the renewal and that

was sent directly after this hearing, there was no response and in the interim, public works began to receive further complaints regarding the same issues as previously noted and those can be seen in an e-mail, exhibit j. and, again like i said, the renewal was not completed so on october 28, 2014, public works prepared a final notice allowing 10 calendar days to finalize renewal or revocation would be considered. that was sent via e-mail to the e-mail that the parklet host provided to the department, it was also sent via certified mail and per the ups tracking that was received on october 29th allowing the permit holder an additional 9 days to complete renewal. a renewal was not completed by the deadline of november 7, 2014 so public works held a hearing on december 10 2014 to consider revocation, after the hearing officer heard the

testimony, the hearing officer gave the recommendation to revoke the said permit and just kind of based on the legality per code all permits are revocable at the will of the director and based on this pattern and history of unresponsiveness and the failure to comply with maintenance and agreement requirements and also the failure to comply with the parklet program overall, the department feels this is viable grounds for revocation. i'm available for any questions. >> why don't we start at the far end. >> so, in -- when notice was given and issues cited the smoking issue is smoking a huka smoking? is smoking via a huka considered smoking by the city regulation? was that noted to the permit holder? >> yes, it was specifically state today the permit holder

to discontinue all huka smoking. >> so the permit holder has claimed in his presentation that because it was a vaporized smoking implement, it doesn't matter whether it's a vapor implemented or it's good old fashion tobacco. >> that's correct, the permit holder was made aware to discontinue any type of smoking. >> so there's clarity on that to him and there's clarity that that happens to be the law and he was klair -- that was clarified to him? >> yes, correct. >> okay, thank you. anymore questions? >> i have a couple. am i correct there's another parklet adjacent to this one? >> there's one across the street at 533 jones but that one has -- that one does have a separate sponsor. >> have there been issues with that one >> >> yes but there have not been as many complaint and is one of the prominent complaints that was coming through with this

one was there was a lot of smoking and late night activity going on. . er is there some sort of a occur few for -- curfew for these? >> there is no written curfew, no. >> and you may or may not have this handy the number of parklet permits na have been issued, do you know how many have been revoked? >> from my knowledge i believe one has been revoked previously. so we do allow leniency and we do give opportunities to correct the issues. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, is there any public comment on this item? please step forward. i think the president has indicated two minutes to the speakers so you have two minutes to address the board. >> thank you, my name is thomas seneca, i'm a resident at 540 jones directly above the said parklet and nile cafe, i

testified relatively i think a month ago bh this was first heard and i came in on behalf of the tenants in my building that are agoer phobic and elderly and like myself i'm dual asthmatic whi first moved in, i was on the 7th floor and revieweded in the rear of the building, the situation at that time didn't seem as prevalent, it was when i was move today the front for health reasons, three windows that are allowed better atmospheric breathing and a run through of the air through my apartment and exiting out of my bathroom window. now, the problem that it seemed to me at first i noticed a strange smell coming up from outside and this wasn't at first my thoughts of the three or more different [inaudible] and hindu restaurant, they use

this heat to cook with, they were closed for hours and i was wondering what this obstruction to my breathe k came from and i realized it was a vaporized or huka bar which doesn't vaporize at all and a scented smell that was noxious to my breathing and has since increased my necessity to (breathing in puffer). to maintain asemblance of, you know, i'm chronic state gopd and i was moved in there because it's one of the residence on the block we don't have the amount of trash visa vis-a-vis that are in the other parklet. the amount of noise that's

generated from as you see in the picture that mr. kinani showed earlier, those are cast iron chairs, there's about 15 of them out there and when these are stacked at 4:00 in the morning and dragged across cement to reenter its establishment, it's mind numbing, if you're a 60 or 70 year-old person that live ins your building several of them do it's frustrating -- >> sir, your time is up. >> sorry i didn't realize. >> thank you so much. >> is there any other public comment? step forward.

>> overhead. my name michael nullity, i'm the executive director of alliance for better district 6, and this is picture number 1, this is the parklet that's in question and this is an employee of the asian restaurant that's there on that location and he's swinging a stick at a public person, a person to the public and you can notice here there's somebody sitting down on the parklet, i took these pictures by the way. >> sir, can you try to use the mic. as well, please. >> and then the person's still swinging and the member of the public is standing up to get away from the disturbance and the member of the public that's being accosted is trying to move away and then this last picture, you could see they are

swinging because you can see the movement of the stick. there's no longer a member of the public sitting down and the person is now standing in the parklet. this is just one example of the problems that have existed at this parklet and i did give copies of this for the record. again, the [inaudible] for better district 6 doesn't mrao*ef this is helping the public when these kinds of problems are existing and the parklet -- something needs to be done at this parklet, whether a set of rules need to be posted or something so that law enforcement can better control these kind of problems from happening in the future. thank you. >> excuse me, sir. i'm not sure i understand your point as to the correlation between the person acting up and the location -- >> the person is an employee of -- at the business that's --

this business here, so he's coming out of his business as an employee swinging a stick. it's not the property owner -- the business owner that owns the parklet but it shows how there's a conflict between the businesses on that stretch of the block na's right adjacent to the parklet, and it's causing conflicts. >> okay. >> because when people come and testify, they don't really show any pictures i'm showing pictures. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, good evening, commissioners, my name is john nullity, i'm here as the co-founder of the tree lane cam paining i also gave each of you a copy of the newspaper, in front of it it talks about trees and how we seriously

deals with trees and beautification in our neighborhood, and so the parklet as was told is a gleaning and beautification tool of the city, the parklet started in march 2010 and now is five years old, the program. in 2014, the city had 47 sparkles installed throughout the city. this parklet was approved in 2011, the tree campaign has monitored the parklet and the one located at 533 jones were put in, when they were put in. the [inaudible] is a dense neighborhood -- the densest neighborhood in san francisco. no other neighborhood nr the city has two parklet across the street from each other. the current [inaudible] police station goes to the bordering street of geary we request the commission revocation of the parklet at 544 jones.

thank you very much for your time. >> next speaker, please. >> my name is david wallace and i happen to live in the building right next door, sorry i have allergies and i'm the one who kicked off this noise issue that the gentleman from dpw mentioned. in fact, i still have my original e-mails between myself, supervisor jane kim and captain garity back when he was in charge of the tenderloin station because i literally called every single weekend because now the cafe would stay open until 4, 5 in the morning with people screaming and

hollering here it is three years later and nothing has been done about this and the previous gentleman mentioned in the tenderloin, my guess is if this was any other neighborhood, that issue would have been taken care of like that, but because it's the tenderloin, it gets shoved off to the side. i've been dealing with this for three years i ended up having to move to the other side of the building to get away from the noise, so there you have it. >> is there any other public comment? okay, seeing none, then we will have rebuttal starting with mr. ahmed you have three minutes of rebuttal if you care to use it. >> so the first gentleman that

said that he has asthma issues, he's a chain smoker, he smokes right in front of the place to begin with and the noise issue that the third gentleman was talking about, there is a club, it's called the new club, a new bar, that is on gary and jones it's called jones bar, it's an open space bar. the noise coming out of that place is nothing compared to noise that i hear people coming down on jones street, and the other picture that was shown adjacent business to me, the guy has been really, really harassing us by putting his dumpsters and trash can right next to the parklet and we have to clean anything that is

dumped, and again, we are trying to do our best to maintain the parklet to sanitary condition, but we can only do so much. we -- i mean, it's a public parklet, so we can't tell people to move. people if they decide to fiekt except calling the police, there is nothing i can do. i maintain the parklet, it's clean but again it's a tenderloin, it's really really hard. i've tried to keep it clean but, you know, at this point you know, i've done the best i can, and if this parklet was somewhere else, on chest nut street or somewhere else, i guarantee you none of this

would happen because i plant a tree and people come literally yank the tree out and throw it, people with mental issues. i've been seeing people pour beer and alcohol into the ivy that i planted, so i've done it for the public. yeah, so i would like to keep it i will try to do more than this, but this is all i can do, so yeah. thank you. >> sir, two questions, one is how late does your cafe open? >> 2:00. >> the department has indicated that on multiple opportunities, you had failed to submit your renewal. >> so, i've given them -- there

was -- the person that expedited the permits for both locations for me and 533 was the same person, so he was given the e-mail address of the other side as the contact information so the two were mixed so that was sorted out last time, the last hearing we had, and i was away -- when i came back, i received a notice so as soon as i saw the notice, i went to dpw to renew my license and they say it's too late. this was november 5th. so that was -- yeah, it was november 5th. >> i have a question. >> yes? >> given your level of frustration with the neighborhood, the population that you described, why is it that you want to continue to sponsor this parklet?

>> there was a gentleman that lived on that apartment that has cancer. he really loved the parklet. he made sure he came and watered the plants that was there and he really enjoyed sitting outside when we have the chairs out, and there are people like him throughout the neighborhood that really appreciate and like the parklet being there so i wanted to keep it. and on top of that, i invested money and i put the parklet there, but again it is really frustrating to have that parklet because you can only do so much. >> okay, thank you. >> yeah, thank you. >> thank you. mr. shaw? >> i have a question i'm sorry i was waiting for the

vice-president to speak. >> the huka situation. >> yes. >> according to the gentleman from dpw, you were advised that smoking of any kind, it's smoke of any kind is clearly against the law according to the person from dpw, you were advised in previous renewals and problematic situations that the hukas were not acceptable under any circumstances. so why wasn't the use of a hukas which you controlled in your business controlled and why consciously was the use of the hukas continued even after you were notified that it was problematic on most cases? >> the hukas as far as i know,

since it was no smoke it's not like smoking cigarettes. >> i just want to ask the question of the gentleman. >> that was brought up last time and that was not clear to me that you cannot basically smoke like vaping people smoke on the sidewalk and then walk into the parklet cigarette, i cannot tell them -- i go there and i say please don't smoke here, and if they say, why don't you get out of here, i'm not going to go and fight with them. there are people who go and smoke and there are people who smoke marijuana, cigarettes and all the stuff on the sidewalk, everywhere and i can only -- i have a sign saying no smoking, and i can only have -- i can only tell them, i cannot really -- >> but in fact in previous

notifications by dpw, you were informed na the hukas were problematic yet -- >> no, that was last time and i thought it was smoking huka. >> i'll ask the gentleman from pbw how clear that was whether it was in writing or whatever? >> okay, thank you. >> okay, mr. shaw we're ready. >> commissioners, raoul shaw, public works just to reiterate a couple of these things, so the issue is more than just the location of this parklet which seems to be brought up a lot, it's the overall non-compliance and the continued non-responsiveness, it's basically the continued actions of the host, in terms of the smoke it was made very clear at the march 26th hearing which

is documented and the audio is clearly documented as well where the hearing officer clearly mentioned to the parklet host not to smoke any type of huka, so regardless if this sign shows a cigarette or any other type of smoke it was made clear not to perform any type of smoking and huka smoking was specifically brought up because that's what the complaints revolved around. i'm available for any other questions. >> commissioners, the matter is submitted. >> okay. it would seem to me -- it's very, very clear that the parklet permit process is that on an annual basis you renew

your license and if it's important to you to have that parklet, especially if you've been noticed once before and failed to respond, that maybe the next time you would be a little bit more sensitive and not put the city through the same process of serving notice again and again and if that parklet was important to you. second of all, the issue of the hukas there was notice given clearly whether it was ambiguous or otherwise unclear to the permit holder in the early stages, the first time around or the second time around, but by the next time around especially as there was testimony in public hearing that hukas are smoking, then to

me that becomes an abuse of the permit. >> i agree. i think that we've heard this case before. as mentioned, there's quite a few parklet in varying districts around san francisco and they seem to manage not to have the same issues in prior as the department mentioned, there's only been one revocation. i think this is a pretty good situation and i'm sorry for the public that's had to tolerate this situation for this long of a time. >> i'm in agreement. >> o do you want to make a motion? >> so my motion is that the appeal is denied for the park and on the grounds that there has been chronic abuse of the rules and regulations associated with holding that permit. >> thank you.

>> [inaudible]. >> i believe it is. >> congratulations. >> mr. pacheco, with you're ready. >> there's a motion on the floor from commissioner swig to uphold the revocation on the basis that there has been chronic abuse related to the holding of this permit? >> the holding of a parklet permit. >> of a parklet permit. on that motion to uphold this revocation, commissioner fung? >> aye. >> president lazarus? >> aye. >> commissioner -- vice-president honda? >> aye. >> commissioner wilson? >> aye. >> thank you. the vote is 5-0. this permit is revoked. the revocation upheld on that basis. thank you. >> thank you. >> the next item is appeal number item 35, appeal number

15-028, robert keith mcburnett and linda pfiffner versus the department of public works bureau of urban forestry the property is 3420 fulton street appealing the denial on february 11, 2015 of a tree removal permit denial or request to remove one privately maintained street tree. and we will begin with the appellants who will have 7 minutes to present their case. >> i'm lind ka pfiffner thank you for hearing our rebuttal we received pbw's response and we'd like to point out some of the limitations and their argument and i'll be reading from this brief. briefly, we are asking to replace a very large tree in the front of our mouse with a small or more suitable tree. on pages 1 to 2, dpw states the expansion of the basin will prevent the unnecessary repair

of the sidewalk closest to the trunk in the faou khu this statement is mislead, the maximum tree basin side is marked on the sidewalk now x the damage to the sidewalk extends well beyond the barking, thus an enlarged basin will mitigate but not eliminate future sidewalk damage from this tree. on page 2, dpw states that regarding the sewer lines the portion that the property owner is responsible for maintaining and the city's portion have been repaired. this is a true statement but it shows a somewhat cavalier avenue to the plight of the homeowner, if the tree has grown so large that it causes damages to the side sewer the party held responsible for both should be able to take a reasonable action, nas to replace the tree, to prevent future damage, on page 3, dpw quotes t repairs will usually

prevent the roots from entering that section of pipe. this is speculation and it is contradicted by the statements of dpw's own repair crew who replaced the side sewer, we discussed what we as property owners could do to prevent reblockage and the workers stated there was nothing we could do to prevent this, it was only a matter of time before tree roots again invaded the site sewer their recommendation is we driver a copper nail into the tree that would disease the tree that would necessitate replacing the tree. dpw has shown no willingness to back up their statement by indemnifying us at the risk of sewer blockage as a result of sewage backup, they're willing for the property owners to assume this risk. pages 3 to 4, this is boilerplate language glorifying the two tree, we stipulate mature trees have an inherent

value and a value to the community, this must be weighed against the risks of an overgrown tree with replacing the tree that does not cause these negative aspects but provides much of the same benefit. well proportioned trees might increase property values but trees that mied sidewalk sewers and overhead do not, the association of tree side *f size with property values is not a line stretching to infinity there is a limit and this tree has reached this limit. the supplemental water issue is not credible. dpw plants hundreds of trees in spite of this and there are other ways that could achieve our greater savings in terms of addressing overmastering of ground and pavement that is routinely done by other property owners and by parks ground crew, if supplemental water is necessary, it is born by the property owner it will not materially affect the

drought. the last paragraph casts dpw as the protector of mature trees against potentially many property owners who might saok to replace trees fw this case were allowed to proceed, this is an appeal to the slippery slope that this line must not be crossed however there are special individual circumstances they that would not apply to most other case, responsible husbandry requires thinning and removing individual trees. there's a separate document called the tree evaluation sheet and here the inspector noted that species may not be suitable under overhead power. we have paid a certified arborist to trim these trees we have trimmed as much as we could without risking the tree, a smaller tree would surely pose less risker the area subject to high winds that would bend tree limbs the inspecto