miles by supporting local services within the neighborhood we help san francisco remain unique, successful and vibrant so where will you shop and dine the 49 hi in my mind a ms. medina

>> hello, everyone. we got new microphones. kind of sounds louder. i'm going to call this meeting to order. welcome to the april 3rd meeting of the san francisco entertainment commission. my name is brian tan. i'm the commission president. a few things that we go over before we get the meeting started. if you're a member of the public and have comment come up to speak when i call it. we also have speaker cards at

the fronted where you can fill and hand to our staff who'll hand to me. you'll be first. second, thank you to sf goff tv and media services for bringing this -- recording this and airing this live to the public and finally, if you have a cell phone, please turn that off or put it on silent so we don't interrupt this meeting. we'll go ahead and start with roll call. [ roll call ] >> all right. we have a full house. first item is general public comment. this is for business that relates to the san francisco entertainment commission that you do not see currently on the agenda. is there any public comment someone would like to make? all right. seeing none, it's closed and move on to item number two. i do have a request to continue

this item as the minute have not been prepared. so can someone please move to continue this to the next meeting. >> so moved. >> second. >> all right. moved by commissioner thomas. secteseconded. let's take a vote. [ roll call ] >> our next item is item number 3, the report from our acting director. it is going to be right. >> i didn't have anything to really get into this evening, but if you have any questions for me, let me know. >> great. is there any public comment on our acting director's very, very light report? seeing none, public comment is closed.

move on to item number 4. he's not here tonight. >> he's absent this evening. >> on to item 5. police department comments and questions. is there any public comments or questions? move on to item 6. very quick first half of our agenda. so this is hearing impossible action for our permits. i had a request to take the one item on the consent agenda and put that on the regular calendar. so let's go ahead and move and hear this item on its own to stand on its own rather than vote on it as a consent item. >> just as an intro to this item, this is limited live performance permit. this is for kawika's ocean beach deli. it's super close to the beach by the safeway there.

he has amazing coffee that you should check out. he brings it straight from kona. he's hoping to have live performances a few nights a week until 8:00 p.m. because that's when he closes his business. the only reason we're taking it off consent tonight is due to the fact that the pd recommendation needed to be updated. they have limited the days to friday to sunday just based on the original application, but the applicant would like to include thursdays as well. the permit officer for the station had no issue with that, but his captain happened to be out of town today. so he couldn't formally change his recommendation. so for that reason, we will bring up the business owner, david knottage, to give a little overview of his business.

>> can you bring that microphone closer to your mouth? >> thank you for hearing me today. kawika's ocean beach deli, we doll a deli with big britches. we are a community hub, serving great coffee and a lot of other things. one of the things that we want to add is acoustic live music, all original music. no covers. well, have to. i choose not to pay b mi, which i'm very aware of. we are also doing poetry readings. we have an intellectual happy hour. our music includes b1950 jazz,

hawaiian music with hula dancers and a mellow rock and roll group. we limit drums to brushes. we don't have any -- we try to -- we keep the windows closed. you can't hear it from the outside. i have a letter -- i don't know if you have a copy of it -- from sandra. she's in full support of this. at the same time, i provided 89 signatures from our residents that live across the street. so if you're facing -- if the windows go out, these folks are residents across the street. there are some that are from the neighborhood in support of what we do. customers that come in and generally love everything that we're doing. our hours for this would be 4:00

p.m. we actually close at 7:30. on the permit, i put 8:00 just in case we went over just a little bit. i have to apologize for the one error, which maggie said, is that originally it was friday through sunday. we do have a few events on thursday. monday through wednesday, nothing. we close super early. we're within -- we're within the noise abatement of 10:00 p.m. officer bryant from the richmond police was in support as long as we comply with his items, which i am more than happy to do. we'll be providing a calendar to them. i was talking to them about a live calendar so that things can be fluid. you know, generally we want to bring culture and have a good

time. with the increase in minimum wages, i'm trying to be creative. trying to bring customers in. trying to have -- we're so close to ocean beach. we're trying to provide entertainment for those that are at ocean beach, to bring in new people. i think that's about it. i thank you for your time. do you have any questions for me? >> commissioners, any questions? sounds pretty straightforward. >> it is. it's very mellow. we're just trying to -- we're just trying to have a good time, you know, and abide by the laws. >> that's what we like to hear. commissioner perez has a question. >> thank you for coming in. did i hear you say you have intellectual happy hour? >> yeah. >> okay. what does that en sale? >> it's a -- it's called our think and drink program. well, we had to call it

something. because we have an alcohol license, we -- that's part of the tie-in to this, is that we want to serve beer and wine. no hard alcohol. this program is for -- well, as an example, my wife is a brand new health coach dealing with autoimmune disease. she does a functional forum once a month, and that helps people in the community with al owe appreciate a, hashimotos, a whole bunch of different autoimmune diseases. we have psychics, card readers that come in. it's basically people that want to read books, that want to -- i talked to a westboun web design. come on in.

let's do a think and drink. we had solar city come in and talk about their products. to the community. i ended up buying from them. does that answer your question. >> kind of like ted talks with beer. >> yeah. >> got it. >> that's the idea. maybe chips. >> now, in case there are some issues or complaints from your neighbors, what would be your general policy and how do we solve this complaint? >> so the building that we're in is a section 8hud building. already older residents. there are younger residents. there are multigenerationals that live in this building in the apartments as well. a lot of the 60s are from those residents. they are not -- most of them are

not english speaking. even the building manager signed this, that they absolutely love it. now, if there's any kind of an issue, i would be more -- i'm more than happy to talk to that person, you know, and discuss it with them as long as they're reasonable. if -- as an example, you have a person in the same building who sings at the top of her lungs that i can hear from my deli and she's down at the end of the block. we close all the windows. so we try to do the best we can. my ceiling tiles are acoustic unless there's a building leak and i have to take them out. we always try to put them back and keep them there. we try to do everything that we possibly can. >> thank you. >> you're very welcome.

>> i have a question. >> do it. >> can you explain to me the sound system you're using? you say small portable speakers in and a board. >> we have a -- we have a small lighting system which has a light board. there are two spotlights so we can dim everything down, all the lights dimmed down. the sound system is fully monitored. i usually sit next to it. it is a basic plug-in for acoustic guitars. we have two microphones, usually those are used for speakers so that the community that we are in is older. people sometimes cannot project their voice. so that's what we utilize that for.

>> how many watts is your amplifier? >> reporter: the speakers themselves are, i believe, 100 watts. but i'm not 100% sure. we -- i keep it way low. >> the speaker is self powered? >> yes, sir. >> okay. so the -- >> the sound board has a high, medium, low, and it has five channels. we run our radio through it during the day. occasionally, when there's a giants game like there was today, we'll run the giants game through those speakers. but even during the day, when those are on, you can't hear anything. >> okay. >> i'm always there for the events, and i monitor the thing. if it gets over, we -- there are instruments that are louder than our sound system, like the saxophone.

>> yeah. we don't usually do a sound check on something small like this, but neighbors start to complain, then we'll probably have to, you know, do some kind of limitations so you know -- because even these small ones are loud. >> there are ten lines. we don't go over the third line ever. >> okay. all right. any other questions? if not, you can have a seat. i'll open it up for public comment. thank you very much. is there any public comment on ocean beach -- sorry -- kawika's ocean beach deli? seeing none, comments are closed. commissioners, what would you like to do? i'm assuming we would like to move to approve. >> do we need to add thursday? i would like to make a motion to approve the limited live permit with the addition of thursday

evening. >> with the police conditions with the addition of thursday. >> yes, please. >> okay. >> second. >> all right. let's take a vote. [ roll call ] >> the motion passes. good luck. we will move on to item number 7. the action to change the conditions on ec1377 place of entertainment for halcyon. >> okay. so we have brought halcyon to hearing tonight. we haven't had them at hearings

since last year, june 20th, 2017. i wanted to bring them here tonight. the main reason really is because there is a condition on their permit that you all placed on the june 20th hearing that is unenforceable essentially. if you turn to their permit, i've highlighted it. it's essentially the condition that reads entertainment shall be restricted to 4:00 a.m. daily. they are allowed to extent until 6:00 a.m., a maximum of 12 times per calendar year. unfortunately, that condition does not stipulate the permit holder would have to provide a calendar of events listing when those 6:00 a.m. events occur. this was at the time when joselyn was still director. i was instructed at that time to reach out to ms. milano to

obtain a calendar of events which we never received a response. i did try several times to have that provided to us, but, again, it wasn't a requirement of the permit since that was not stipulated there. so we definitely had a few quiet months there where we weren't receiving a whole lot of complaints about halcyon. then they started to ramp up again. you'll see text messages in your files and e-mails from neighbors chronicling some of those complaints. i don't feel like you need to refer to the time line. the inspector put together a time line. that's indicative of events relating to halcyon since june 20th of last year. on there, he does list about 30 complaints over the period of

time since that hearing occurred. that's essentially reporting that to the commission. you've definitely heard of those complaints over the months in his reports. then what else do we have here? i did try to have ms. milano in my office to mediate on that one condition of going to 6:00 a.m., but she did not want to meet in person. so, again, i think another reason just to include the commission here this evening regarding that. i think just the volume of complaints, it seems to have ramped up again. you'll also see in your file there's three citations there for sound violations exceeding her decibel limit of 116. that is the internal limit from the dance floor. so that has been exceeded.

it happened once in november, twice in december of last year. let's see. what else do we have? i have spoken with the neighbors. it looks as though several of these complaints are coming in after 4:00 a.m. that's something to note. i've been told that ms. milano is not totally responsive to her neighbors. one other note about the citations from inspector burke, those are all unpaid at this point. >> dating back to -- >> november. >> the last three. >> yeah. >> thank you. >> we have a representative here tonight from supervisor kim's office that i think needs to leave early. >> great. let's hear from supervisor kim's office. >> commissioner tan,

commissioners, not here on a pleasant note, unfortunately. but when constituent issues conflict with the interest of small business, that is where the supervisor asks staff to get involved and make statements on her behalf. i think i will start out reading some information that i was able to find out. first and most basic, halcyon is an adjective denoting a period of time in the past that was happy and peaceful. those days of the mid 1980s when prophets were soaring. idealic, carefree, joyful, joyous, contented. thriving, prosperous, successful, serine, calm,

tranquil, peaceful. what difference could an extra hour of sleep make in your life? maybe quite a lot. studies though that the gap between getting just enough sleep and getting too little sleep may affect your health, your mood, your weight. if you're getting less than recommended 7 or 8 hours of sleep each night, here are 9 reasons why you should shut down your computer, turn off the lights, and go to bed an hour early tonight. number one, better health. getting good night's sleep won't grant you immunity from disease, but study after study found a link between insufficient sleep and some serious health problems such as heart disease, heart attacks, diabetes, and obesity. better sex life. according to a poll conducted by the national sleep foundation, up to 26% of people say their sex lives tend to suffer because they're just too tired. there's evidence that in men,

impaired sleep can be associated with lower testosterone levels. the exact nature of the link isn't clear. less pain. if you have chronic pain or acute pain from a recent injury, getting enough sleep may actually make you hurt less. many studies have shown a link between a lack of sleep -- between sleep loss and lower pain threshold. unfortunately, being in pain can make it hard to sleep. lower risk of injury. sleeping enough might actually help you be safer. sleep deprivation has been linked to many notorious disasters, like the destruction of the space shuttle challenger and the grounding of the exxon valdiz. one to five auto accidents in the u.s. result from drowsy driving. that's about 1 million crashes a year. better mood. getting enough sleep won't

guarantee a sunny disposition, but you've probably noticeed when you're exhausted, you're more likely to be cranky. that's not all. when not getting enough sleep affects your emotional regulation, you're overtired, more likely to burst into tears or laughing uncontrollably. better weight control. getting enough sleep can help you maintain your weight and conversely sleep loss goes a lot way to increase risk of weight gain. why? part of the problem is behavioral. you're overtired. you might be less likely to have the energy to go for a jog or cook a healthy dinner after work. clearer thinking. have you ever woken up after a bad night's sleep feeling fuzzy and confused? like your brain is not getting out of first gear? better memory, feeling forgetful? sleep loss could be to blame. studies have shown while we sleep, our brains process and

consolidate our memories from the day. if you don't get enough sleep, it seems like those memories might not get stored correctly and can be lost. stronger immunity could getting enough sleep prevent the common cold? one study put the idea to a test. researchers tracked over 150 people and monitored their sleep habits for two weeks. when they -- then they exposed them to a cold virus. people who got 7 hours of sleep a night were less than almost three times -- people who got 7 hours of sleep a night or less were almost 3 times as likely to get sick than people that got at least 8 hours of sleep. in washington, reuters reported switching over to daylight savings, that one hour, and losing that one hour of sleep raised the risk of having a heart attack the following monday nationwide by 25%.

one hour. compared to other mondays during that year. by contrast, heart attack risk fell 21% later in the year on the tuesday after the clock returns to standard time and people got an extra hour of sleep. halcyon is not just a news age, but it's a public health issue. a history of noise complaints by the time of day submitted demonstrate a lack of compliance here. after 4:00 a.m. i can't think of the last time i was awake in that hour of time. it definitely would interfere in my sleep patterns. the history of citation that's are unpaid, i think the evidence demonstrates a basic unwillingness to comply with the law. in summary, i think i would encourage this body to augendize to suspend this operator for a

period of time. >> thank you. i have a couple of questions since you're up here. has your office received or -- have you tallied the number of complaints that your office received about them or can you give us a record? is. >> we've received a few complaints since i've been with the office six weeks ago. we also have, from the police department, lieutenant artiga here who has information from the police department. but our office has been called, which is why i'm here. >> and have you spoken directly to the business owner and or residents that made the complaints and how did those conversations go if you have. >> i have not had any conversations with the operator of the business. i have had e-mail conversations with the neighbors. >> the neighbors. okay. great. that's helpful for us to know. we do love to sleep, but are also supportive of people who don't want to sleep and make sure they get along.

i think that's the heart of what we're talking about today. thank you. >> thank you. >> all right. i think i believe halcyon is here. i know our acting director stated there's one particular condition that we would like to address, but i think there are clearly other sort of issues around sound abatement. so if ms. milano if you want to come up or your representative. i'm happy to allow you to have some time now. >> my name is russell robinson. i represent ms. milano and halcyon. i do want to address some of these issues in detail, but there's a few issues i want to get out of the way preliminarily. i want to make sure we are not here on a suspension or

revocation hearing. we're on a modification. >> yeah. you're not up for suspension at this point in time. >> wasn't noticed that way. the other thing i would like to do, president tan, i mean no personal front to you, but you've had ex parte communications with two of the complaining parties as i recall, ms. ellis and mr. vu going back to may of 2017. i think we submitted those. i'm very concerned with your impartiality. in those e-mails, you sort of telegraphed your intent as related to halcyon i am i'm asking you to excuse yourself from determinations in this matter. >> i'll take that on advisement. at this time, we -- i don't feel like i need to recuse myself based on that. but, again, you can present what you would like to present. >> very well. i'm going to conclude right now i'm going to turn the microphone

over to ms. milano and i'll come back up after we've had several other people speak on behalf of the nightclub. >> sure. >> ms. milano. >> hello, commissioners. my name is gina milano. i have owned and operated six entertainment businesses in sf. i continually strive to bring new and exciting things to the city i love. i love what i do for a living. i love the nightlife. i love the people involved in it. i love the tens of thousands of people that come to my venue to enjoy it weekend after weekend. it is the right of the residents of sf and the city's visitors to

have an inlay recognized, globule respected late night venue. i've said it before and i will say it again. there's no money to be made between 2:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. we do this so that we may bring world famous talent to sf and positively contribute to the nightlife. more importantly, halcyon is a safe, licensed, permitted venue for late night party-goers. and there is definitely a demand for a legal and safe late night venue in san francisco. we have never had a fight or act of violence at our venue. we are could compliant with the fire department, police department, ada, labor commissioner. we're insured. we offer health care to our employees, supply jobs to people who need them. we do not serve minors or liquor after-hours or allow drug use. we don't tolerate disrespect of

women, lgbt or any other guests for that matter. we treat the members of our community with more than just respect. we actually care for them. we are kind to them, prop them up, give them joy, and a safe haven in san francisco after-hours. look at our social media pages and you'll see the community we have built who love halcyon and are appreciative of its existence. we have proven the process by which you have determined our db rating is unfair and flawed. our demonstrations from fallen on deaf ears. the facts appear to be disregarded. the experts we have hired -- it seem the only people you will listen to are tony vu and kelly ellis, two complaining neighbors. holly cow couldn't use the patio since tony moved in. wish bar can't have music every might. one can't use the patio upstairs

without kelly ellis complaining and certainly can't use it after 10:00 p.m. halcyon can't stay open late and its predecessors have been licensed for over 40 years. all because of two people and their anti nightlife agenda. two people who moved to the one remaining bona fide nightlife area of the city. do you respond to all neighbor complaints with the same vigor and biased approach? no one ever complains about illegal after-hours. nine well-known locations selling alcohol between 2:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. and offering bottle service without an abc license, outfitted with sound systems that rival the one in my nightclub, competing with me. all without a place of entertainment permit. these venues crowd hundreds of people a night into them without occupancy rules, fire department permits, or health department permits. they advertise the parties on

facebook and e-mail and text blast to tens of thousands of people and celtic et cetera on legitimate ticketing platforms. does it seem strange to anyone that you're coming after the one late night legit gnat nightclub and attempting to limit or revoke the license? i have invested $2.5 million in a safe, vital, legitimate entertainment venue that i am trying to protect. what, if any, of these venues invested? why does the police department and entertainment commission continue to turn a blind eye to them while penalizing us. i understand that it's not regulated the unpermitted venues, but they work in close concert with the sfpd and more to the point the noise and sound these unpermitted venues generate contributes to the total sound in the 11th street area and creates a sound

nuisance not zoned for entertainment. we were under the impression treat entertainment commission was founded to protect and promote entertainment. however, that has not been our experience. i get the impression that you all think that i simply flaunt authority or don't respect the rules and regulations. this is incorrect, and could not be farther from the truth. as a matter of fact, i wish more operators, illegal and otherwise, and the ec and the employees abided by the rules and regulations. as i mentioned before, i'm attempting to make a $2 .5 million sf nightlife invest. viable. we need to be treated fairly and evenly. reasonable and impartial judgment of the facts, objective and equitable. all these things would promote legal entertainment and rewarding operators such as myself who have repeatedly invested in and contributed to

sf nightlife. i and my team are hard-pressed to understand why this is happening to halcyon. is it because i'm a woman? too popular? not popular enough? don't have friends in the right places? is it because someone wants to build a 19 unit residential building directly behind me venue? is it because another operator, maybe a neighboring operator, has a bone to pick? is it because someone is making an ungodly amount of money allowing illegal after-hours to proliferate in our city? i have no idea why we have not been treated fairly, but i must continue to testified myself and my -- defend myself and my staff and this venue because this entire situation does not feel right to myself or any of us. on two separate occasions, inspector sean burke intentionally set our db limits below what was legally allowed by the government code to placate two known nuisance neighbors. he did so with disregard for his responsibilities as a government employee and a lack of

objectivity. that should be dis allowed in his position as not a ec enforcement officer. this behavior is exhibited in the multiple text messages between him and the two complainants. inspector burke is bias and acting on behalf of the neighbors, not the licensed place of entertainment. on the first occasion, we were unfairly limited to 100db. we are unaware of testing he conducted or how he arrived at this number. we initially thought that our rating would be 115, but once permitted, we were given 100db. note that resting am bee ant in the room on any given day with no music happening is between 98 and 101.7db. furthermore, there are no supporting documents in the info we received from the ec in our document request to explain how inspector burke arrived at this number. it was a time-consuming and expensive process to have our

levels raised. during which time we were unfairly issued citations. we have three globally acclaimed sound consultants to prove we were due a higher rating, but their expertise was dissar disr. we were forced to hire a third consultant, the ecs firm at a cost of $5,000. we arranged a site visit with the expert and inspector burke to determine an appropriate level. at this time, we were not allowed to test at a level higher than 110db. when myself, andrew, and an engineer protested, burke stated that to test above 110db would be a violation of the sound code. we were bullied into this level. this was the second time that he intentionally set our db rating below what would be legally

allowed by city code. inspector burk's visits to our female run establishment will have been rate with miss agony, convicting statements and behavior indicative of a bias. we all have the same experience. we were so threatened by his changeable behavior and illogical approach, we felt compelled to request a neutral party to observe the testing by the consultant we hired to assess our internal db limits. furthermore, and with great hardship, we were forced to test the sound levels off our roof and from a neighboring backyard in order for the testing to be deemed admissible to the ec. our neighbor who is a poe and nightclub occupies the upper half of our building was not held to the same testing standards. andrew mckee, the third party

independent consultant gave us a rating of 118db, although we were compliant at higher db ratings at various parts of the building. it should be noted we would have received a higher db rating had the testing been conducted in the same fashion as our neighbor's. when we presented this information to you, the commission, we were punitively brought down to 116db. some of your members tried to make it lower. this was after we felt forced to use two parties independent of the ec so that we could achieve a level of neutrality and a reasonable and fair assessment of the facts of the you treated something that seriously impacts my $2.5 million business and the future licensing like an auction item. then to placate two nuisance complainers, you chose to limit my hours of operation bringing it in line with neighboring

businesses. one who had just recently been given the same exact licensing you gave to me after also receiving citations for not being compliant. this is just a sampling of the multiple infractions we have suffered. we have hundreds of documents from our collective document request that illustrate nuisance neighbors, uneven treatment from venue to venue. unfair accusations, inconsistent testing and documentation, and a total disregard for input from independent third party experts. the list goes ow on and on. here i stand with citations written by inspector burke and unpaid in protest. we continue to question the validity of the violations and the process. once again, we are forced to hire an independent third party expert to address the issue. does that even matter?

will anyone respect the findings of an industry expert who specializes in sound compliance and travels the world dealing specifically with these issues for nightclubs and residential neighbors? or will it be more money wasted by me and my team because someone has an agenda to push that has nothing to do with acoustical science, city code, or preserving sf nightlife. the sound code does not state that tony vu and kelly ellis are to have silence if their apartments yet you are attempting to limit our operations and enforce to that end. we have put forth repeatedly at 120db inside halcyon, tony has a 2db increase. at the point of reference, the la sound code allows for up to 5db in a residence for those residing near a place of entertainment. we also maintain we are code

compliant and less than 8db over ambient outside the building during operations at higher interior db levels than you have allowed us. yet, you did nothing to attempt to help us. again, limiting us to placate the two neighbors. regardless of the constant stress we've been made to endure and the limitations placed on us, we have just placed 87 in the top 10100 clubs in the world and we are one of the top 10 new clubs in the world. these are two of the most reeferred music venues. we are only to be stymied by effort to placate two neighbors who have a long history of attempting to eliminate all nightlife in the sf zoned entertainment district. this is a global issue. nightlife is being constricted

by incoming residential. london, amsterdam, berlin, and l.a. have taken steps to protect their nightlife. after halcyon, who is next? who is next to be shut down for these reasons? that's my prepared statement. i would add a few other things. with regards to the late night programming and my lack of response, it was not written in the new permit that i would have to tell you what days i would be operating until 6:00 a.m. when i received the request, i did some research and spoke to the gentleman audio and found that they were not required to tell the entertainment commission what nights they would be operating until 6:00 a.m., until the end of the year, which is why i asked, can you please send us the dates you'll be operating until 6:00 a.m. until the end of the year? they weren't required to do that. audio was required to give

notice one week before. just as a general rule for booking of deejays, we don't know who is playing for us through the end of the year. sometimes it's a booking that comes across in 3 to 4 weeks. sometimes it's something that's played out longer. so that's an unreasonable request. it is a reasonable request to ask us to give you one week's notice. we ask for the same treatment that you've given my neighbors, the same exact treatment. furthermore, dates that we were accused of being open past 4:00 a.m. by kelly ellis and tony vu, i'll read through these, june 23, 2017, we were not open past 4:00 a.m. august 10th, the venue was closed. december 10th, 2017 was a 6:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. audio was open past 2:00 a.m. january 11, venue closed. february 24th, 25th, venue closed 4:00 a.m.ment we have the reports to prove this. dates with programming past 4:00

a.m., october 28th, 2017, halcyon anniversary. november 25th, 2017. i'm not saying that we are not open sometimes until 4:06 or 4:10. sometimes the room has 300 people in it screaming and shouting for the deejay to play one more song and they may play one more song. we're not blatantly disregarding your request to not stay open past 4:00 a.m. beef been very, very diligent and we've been communicative with the deejay saying it's a 4:00 a.m. closing time. there are times we say you can go past 4:00 a.m. i would also like to say more. when the complaints first started up again in october, it was october 29th, which is the first time we were made aware of a complaint, so june 20th, you limited my operations. we were -- as far as we knew, all was good, we hadn't received any complaints from tony or

kelly. so october 29th was when they kicked up again heavily. october 29th, i think every weekend in move they called and every weekend in december they called. at that time, i reached out to another known sound specialist to had tuned my sound system in the past. i asked him if he knew of someone who specialized in dealing with city governments and city code when nightlifes were found to be non compliant, but the nightclub did not believe that to be the case. he suggested john of jpm acoustics who dealt around the worldment i met with john in san diego, and was able to view one of the tools of his trade firsthand, noise modeling. have any of you ever seen a noise modeling image? i wish i would have printed one to show you. maybe i can find one to show you. it was my experience that after day one at cross festival, the police received complaints about

neighbors hearing the festival who were not supposed to be hearing the noise. using noise modeling. he was able to move the speakers and attenuate sound affecting these neighbors. noise modeling takes into account all of the structures of a building and around a surrounding building and determine what db levels, how they're affected as they move through certain materials and as they hit these buildings. so he can generate a graph that shows what the intensity is of the db level hitting certain buildings. he can also determine what type of structure can limit those db levels. this is an incredibly expensive undertaking for me. first, he's based in the uk and now living in l.a. because he's working on projects there. i would have to bring him up to san francisco. that incredible expense to us, but i'm willing to do this to

alleviate your concerns and to find out exactly what it is that tony and kelly are hearing in their apartments and any other potential complainants. but as i said, in my statement, i don't want to waste the money and throw good money after bad. i need to understand you'll respect the science behind this and that there is science with acoustics. this will be now i think the 5th expert that i've brought in front of you guys with documents. that's all i'm asking for. i'm asking for respect of acoustic al science and of the experts that we bring before you for third party independent experts. thank you. >> thank you. you were giving us a lot to work with. >> thank you. >> i just want to state that, you know, i -- it makes me sad actually for you to think that you've been targeted unfairly. i think we try our best and do our best to be impartial and to defend nightlife and to do it in a way that neighbors don't

complain so we don't have to keep calling you here to the commission and that our staff can i basically ignore you because we know that you're a good. that's not to have you be a squeaky wheel. we deal enough with nightlife and venues to know when neighbors are being unreasonable and i think in this case, we're trying to just get to the bottom of what is going on. so i agree with you. i mean, i believe in science. i think we all do up here. we had the department of public health come out to do sound testing at your venue. that's what gave us sort of a third party city validation that the sound level that we set was a good one. i'm a little concerned that -- i think there's things you might feel like can be loose but conditions are conditions. if you go past 4:00 a.m., even if it's 4:01, that's not compliant to your conditions.

i understand, i love going to parties and i love clapping along toet got deejay to keep going, but what our conditions are placed there for is to make sure that our operators can abide by them. our inspectors and staff are there to enforce them. what we want to see is good actors. i think at the end of june when we had the new conditions placed on you, if we don't hear anything in 6 mods, a year, you can come back and we'll raise the sound limits, but unfortunately, that's not the track you've gone on or that we've seen, you know, presented to us. so i don't think we have conclusions set just yet. we want to hear more from you and the neighbors. but i do want to say that not paying citations, thinking, you know, not -- an biding by or being accused of not abiding by your conditions doesn't look good and i think that's why we have these hearings is to try to understand what are the actual

facts. so that's my comment for now. i'm going to open it up for questions. i do have several others, but i do want to open it up to commissioners to ask some first. looks like commissioner lee might want to -- >> i have one here. you have one ticket with internal level reading of 120db. i'm reading on the report that a level of 120db, you're two dbs over the legal police code, according to salter, which in his conclusion or their conclusion, that 118 would be a good level -- probably the maximum level, and obviously, you know, we wanted to go a little bit lower so you wouldn't hit that threshold of 120. i mean, it seems like at 120, you're going to start disturbing people. so i guess the ticket that you

got was at 120. i mean, deejays are deejays, unless there's a limiter that it's set at 1 i 118 and it stars sounding like crap at 120. world class deejays are going to pissed off. i plain -- i mean, we're not your operator, but giving a ticket at 120 is legitimate. i'm sure you can -- if you had problems with that, you can appeal it. but to not pay it seems kind of, you know, not very professional. but i understand where you're coming from. we're not here to say that the science isn't right or wrong. we can only go by the experts that were hired. if you want to appeal t i'm sure your attorney can appeal it. in the meantime, when you don't

pay it, it just seems kind of, you know -- i mean, as an operator, i wouldn't want to -- >> not paying in protest is a valid reason not to pay the ticket, firstly. many secondly, we maintain we were unfairly tested, that we were not tested to the same standards that other venues and san francisco were tested to. thirdly, we've always -- >> well, you have a consultant here, and however he -- he does a lot of testings on a lot of other venues. and after they do their testing, we don't have problems. maybe a few problems, not as much as here. i'm making a point. you have an expert here. >> you know that you have 30 days to appeal any citation. >> i do know that. i also know the citation is through the board appeals. it's not easy. >> it's not through the board of appeals. >> it's through you guys? >> yeah. you have 30 days to appeal a citation. after which we have every right to even put a lien on your business to get that money back.

so that is not the route that we're trying to take, but you have every right to say, hey, i don't think your equipment reading was correct. i don't think that -- whatever the appeal is. we haven't seen that. instead, we hear ones w once wel you in that you have these grievances. there's a process that works here, and we would like you to follow that process because that just helps all of us. when you don't follow that process, it makes us look like -- it makes it look as if you don't care about the authority that we have. i get you feel like we're targeting you or that we're biased, but there's a process to try to correct for those and safeguard against those. i haven't seen that fully exercised by you. >> understood. i also wanted to stay that i am not comfortable speaking to anyone from the entertainment commission or coming in front of the commission without having an attorney present. i made this clear to --

>> it's okay. >> that's fair. >> that's why i did not go and have meetings with maggie. i told her i'm retaining counsel and that we would like to have counsel present for any interactions. >> and is your counsel willing to work with us? because when you're handing it off to a lawyer, our expectation is that lawyer responds to our requests as well. >> absolutely. >> okay. one more comment. >> okay. so as far as these complaints and you logged that you're closed and this happens quite often at other venues. i mean, obviously it's your right to do so. i would like to see those. i don't think -- did you ever submit -- is it in here? there's so much material. >> i honestly don't know because we received the packet from the attorney at like 2:00 p.m. today. >> when you're closed and they're saying that you're open and -- these are things we need to see.

>> gotcha. you need proof they were closed. >> it happens. there's a lot of venues around you. but at the same token -- and since you're mentioning other venues, there's places like dnas like a bomb shelter, and they play very loud inside. you don't hear a peep outside. so i'm just saying, it's not that. it's just your building. people spend a lot of money -- i mean, jamie came from a lot of money, and he basically bombproofed his place. i'm sure that if he's playing the same music that you're playing, you might not have that have that impact, but obviously you don't have the money that he has, i'm sure. but i'm just saying, we're not targeting your building or how we do things. it is capable to soundproof a building and go way beyond the call of duty so that you don't have complaints like this. so i kind of don't buy it that we're kind of picking on you.

i think it's building by building and how it's done. audio, obviously we haven't had a lot of -- i haven't seen any -- that much complaints on audio. i don't know. maybe their building is different or what. but i go with the data. okay. >> i would like to say that i don't think you're picking on me. that's not actually what i said. what i said was that i was being treated unfairly. after reviewing the e-mails and text messages that were sent over in the document request, the attorney will probably reference these, audio had like 13 e-mail complaints, and i have 15 e-mail complaints. another has 13. there aren't that many differences in the number of complaints that are being lodged against audio or halcyon or wish. when we talk about text messages, i counted every single text message, and who was mentioned in each text message. so it may seem that halcyon is

the bad person, we're the people who are reeking havoc. that's not the case. these two mentioned all of the venues on 11th street and with quite regularity. prior to my taking procession of halcyon, there were five e-mails complaining about beat box from tony vu. there was -- i can't remember the number complaining about wish. so this is a long list of complaints about venues in this neighborhood. it's unfair to say oh, it's all halcyon and it's halcyon and halcyon and halcyon. the fact that, as my steph will attest to, we're often blamed when we're not open. things -- we were blamed for a shooting that happened around the corner at holy cow. we were blamed for -- which was a mortality unfortunately. they died close to our door and shut down the street so our

guests couldn't get to us. we were blamed for, you know, other police activity which was a drive-by shooting at holy cow. we feel as if we are being singled out and blamed for things that are not necessarily -- >> i mean, i personally have not heard them blame those incidents on your club. >> we have proof of it. >> okay, but i haven't heard. so without the data and say i'm not accusing you of any of that. i haven't heard that situation and, of course, the police investigation would have to tell us if they have a problem with their club, they would say something to us. >> correct. >> so i mean, i know it's getting personal, but let's just try to keep it to the data and what we have on record right now. from this point on, we'll try to sort through this whole thing. but i'm just reading the specialist you hired. >> say it again.