naibl. >> to my left is robert brian he's a deputy city attorney and he'll provide the board with any legal advice tonight. at the controls is the board's legal assistant victor pa chen koe, i'm the executive director we'll be joined tonight by some of the represents from city departments that had cases before the board i see that raoul shau is here, and also chris buck, urban forester is here also from public works. i believe we'll be joined shortly by scott sanchez, the city zoning administrator who represents the planning commission and joseph duffy senior building inspector representing the department of building inspection.

we'll also be representatives here, perhaps they're already in the audience from the department of public health who will be here for those cases that are related to that department. mr. pacheco, if you could please go over the meeting guidelines and conduct the swearing in process. >> the board requests to turn off all cell phones and pagers so they do not interfere with the proceedings the board's rules of presentation is as follows, appellants, permit hold esinger and department represent i fevers have 7 minutes to present their case and is three minutes for rebuttals, people affiliated with these parties must include their comments within the 3-7 minute period, people who are not affiliated have three minutes each to present, to assist the board on the preparation of minutes, members of the public are requested to submit a speaker card when you

come up to the podium. speakers cards and pens are available on the left side of the podium. the board also welcomes your comments and suggestions. there are customer satisfaction survey forms on the left side of the podium. if you have questions about requesting a rehearing, board rules or hearing schedules, please speak to our staff during a break or after the meeting or call the board office morning. the board office is located at 16150 mission street room 304, this meeting is broadcast live on san francisco government television, sf gov tv, cable channel 78 and dvd's are available to purchase directly from sf gov tv thank you for your attention. we'll conduct our swearing in process. if you intend to testify at any of tonight's hearings and wish to have the board give your testimony evidentiary weight, please stand.

please note that any member of the public may speak without taking this oath pursuant to the rights under the sunshine ordinance. thank you. >> (swearing-in of testifiers). >> thank you. >> thank you. so, item number 1 is general public comment, this is for anyone who wants to address the board on an item that is not on tonight's calendar is there any general public comment? seeing none them, i teem 2 is commissioner comments and questions. commissioners? seeing none then item 3 is the board's consideration of the minutes for the meeting of may 6, 2015. >> any changes corrections deletions to the minutes? hearing none, may i have a motion to adopt the minutes as presented. >> we have a motion from

commissioner swig, is there any public comment on the minutes? seeing none mr. pacheco, if you could call the roll, please. >> on this motion from commissioner swig to adopt the may 6, 2015 minutes, commissioner fung? >> aye. >> president lazarus? >> aye. >> vice-president honda? >> aye. >> commissioner wilson ?frjts aye. >> the vote is 5-0 those minutes are adopted. >> okay, thank you, so item 4 is appeal number 15-023, kin nanny ahmed doing business as nile cafe, the property is at 544 jones street and this is an appeal of the revocation of january 27, 2015 of a parklet, we can start with the appellant. so you have 7 minutes to present your case to the board. >> hello commissioners, my

name is ki nanny. >> would you mind raising up your microphone. >> i'm doing business at 544 jones at nile cafe and i have issued a parklet in 2013 and it's in the tenderloin and i'm one of the first parklet that were given permits in the tenderloin area and as everybody knows the tenderloin is not an easy place to do business because of the kind of demographics we have. it's not -- if you were to compare it with somewhere, north beach or valencia we have a lot of homeless population and given the scope of enforcement that we can be able to do, it's a public space

and we can't really tell people to move and it's been really difficult to tell someone when they are coming and doing whatever they wanted to do on the parklet to move them. the only resource we had was to call the police and so we had that issue and then we had a situation where i did not receive the renewal notice for the parklet and the time when i went to renew i was told that it's already past that time and it's already -- it's in the process to be revoked, so i came here in may and it was

safe to be revoked, so i appealed the decision, and i have some pictures that i was going to share. is there a way that i can -- you really canted see -- i mean, people do all kinds of littering and my guys have to go out there and clean and we clean all the time and i have a guy who lives in an apartment his name is tom, he's not here, he's one of my main witness that he loves the parklet he takes care of it and he had an

accident the day before yesterday and he's in the hospital so it's unfortunate because he would tell you more about what's going on. so at this point i mean, it's -- i have made it for the public, for public use and i would like to keep it but it's been a really difficult for me because my hands are tied, i can't really do anything to -- it's a public space so i can't tell people to move and all i can do is just go after them and just clean up andand that's about it. >> does your furniture remain outside? >> new york city -- no it doesn't. the reason i did that is

because i leave it overnight, it will be a camp site so i don't want that to be the case so we bring it in and bring it out. >> the question i have is, so, does your business use hook-up pipes in your business? >> yes, we do. >> so one of the complaints was that the use of hook-up pipes were being used on the parklet. >> people bring it out. it's a vapor so as long as -- i mean, as far as i know vaping is not illegal, and sometimes people smoke and i tell them to move along and we have a sign. >> okay, thank you. >> that's it. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> so we can hear from the department now. mr. shaw. >> good evening, president lazarus, commissioners and i'm

[inaudible] from public works in san francisco. just before i get into this particular case, i'm going to give a brief background and sock regulations that we have with with sparkles, public works with the planning department and the municipal parking authority to review parklet and is rereview per pbw order which outlines the procedures for parklet, the parklet manual which gives regulations on maintenance as well and article 16, section 810 of the public works code, per policy and per agreements set with all the parklet hosts the host is responsible for all maintenance of the parklet and the park let is a public space so the parklet is not to be privatized for full customers of the cafe therefore there sho* shall not be direct serving of any type of a product or items within the property itself.

the host cannot exclude the public from entering the parklet or ask the public from leaving the public space and the host basically agrees to maintain and upkeep the parklet in general and in addition there's no smoking whatsoever allowed in any of the parklet and this is outlined in the parklet manual 1.0, it's exhibit 1 in your documents. going into this particular project, so this one has somewhat of a long history, so the original permit was granted in december 13, 2011, and in august of 2012, the planning department per e-mail began receiving complaints, in addition until complaints were later received in december 2012. most of these complaints focused on the unsanitary kons conditions, the late operation hour, the high concentration noise during these hours the privatization of the parklet,

the issues of suka and the fact that there was no maintenance within the parklet space itself. public works made a site visit and verified some of these conditions, mainly the lack of the standard required material for example the soft [inaudible] and the secured [inaudible] which are required for the safety of the patrons within the parklet as well as the public. the unsanitary conditions were taken note of there was debris scattered and exhibit d should show these conditions. the parklet host was reminded of the policy and regulations and made aware of the issues and given an opportunity to address them and correct them. after this, however, further complaints regarding the same issues were received in august of 2013 and nose are documented in exhibit e, the permit holder was made aware of these once again and provided an opportunity to correct. after this, there was some unresponsiveness and the permit holder did not follow up with

the renewal which is required annually and therefore after more follow-up, the permit holder finally did complete renewal on october 8, 2013 and renewals should have occurred in february so this is several mothers late, but the department did allow this and provided 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