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.

>> salter, i'm reading what he said that at 120, you're two over. >> to my point and repeat again, if we had been tested the same way our neighbors had been tested, we would be able to go higher than 120 because that was off the roof line. right? the roof line of the business. >> is that why he came in and we have readings up to 122 that you were cited for. >> excuse me? >> i'm curious, you know, you were cited three times after june -- >> this is generally what happens. we have a db meter hanging in the middle of the dance floor which our sound person watches all night. we have db meters on our phone, each of us. we also have db meters that -- a db meter we use to go outside. >> they're all never going above 116? is that correct. >> that's what i'm about to tell you. we have db meters we patrol the neighborhood with. if i think it sounds loud,

meaning that the deejay is popping things up, i'll look at the reading on my phone. i'll go up to the desk. i'll say he's running hot. let's pull him down to bring him in line. steven is correct. every so often you get a deejay who is crank happy or cranks it up for a song or something like this. we try our best to mitigate that. but as you can see, in the reports, every time shawn comes in, we're not cited. he comes in fac in frequently ae not cited. these are a blip on the screen. if it's a 2 minute reading, it's a 10 second blip. i don't remember what the other one was. it's like 20 seconds and it comes back up again. the average is lower. it's just an occasional pop up to the numbers. any operator will tell you that is the way sound works. the average is lower than the peak of 122 they are hitting. so these are things -- and quite frankly, if you did limit us to

116 and we had to set a meter at 116, it would be much lower in the room. you wouldn't get the peaks at all and it would be much lower in the room. so it's acoustical signs in the way that the db readings work. and we also, again -- >> that is your limit, 116. i think that was a win for you from our june meeting. >> why did you limit me to 116 when salter said 118. >> he also said 2db difference is almost inaudible. right? >> if i were going to 120, it would be inaudible? >> you know what? we can replay the tapes on all the discussion of that meeting. the condition is a condition. that was a decision of this commission. what i don't understand is why you repeatedly decide to go beyond the limits of those conditions. if you're a good actor or venue owner, you would say this sucks. i don't like it. i don't agree with it, but i'm going to abide by these rules

and prove to them that i can be trusted and then i'm going to go back and ask for a higher db limit and make sure everything is soundproofed in the way that the neighbors aren't going to complain. that's not what i'm seeing tonight. that's not what i'm seeing over the course of the last 8 months. that's what concerns me because even when you're saying right now is like, hey, you were wrong. but irregardless if you agreed with us or not, we are the city's deemed body to set these limits, and you have to abide by them. if not, that's what puts you in jeopardy of we're not suspending you today. we're not -- i don't think we're trying to go there even. i think we're trying to figure out how can we get you and us to work better together? how can we get you and the neighbors to work better together? it's not just all in conditions. i think it's about putting that good faith effort into, and we have to fall back on conditions because that sort of is a legal arm that we have. so i hear -- like you've said a

few things that concern me about, hey, you set the limit. i don't agree with t i'm going to go over what i think is right because my scientists are right. but we're the city here. we're the entertainmentition exam. you have to listen to us. it's like telling a cop that you don't agree about a particular law. there's consequences to that. i don't want the consequence for you to be suspended or shut down. so i just hope you can trust that's what we're trying to do here. again, it's about how can we get you to the table to work with us and to work with your neighbors to make this work for everyone. so i think commissioners have a couple other questions. i think there's a couple items that we want to specifically kind of make sure we get cleared up outside of just hearing, you know, from you and the neighbors. specifically around this calendar thing. >> excuse me one second. >> yeah. >> so commissioners, do you guys have any other questions?

i think it looks like we might want to hear from neighbors now. so we'll give you an opportunity to come back up afterwards as well. >> okay. thank you. >> thank you ms. milano. sorry. that's right. >> really quickly also, i did send an e-mail that went unanswered after shawn had written me citations saying we would like to have our internal db rating revisited and did not receive a response e-mail. just so you know. did i make a request to have that -- >> do you know what that was? >> i'll look through the e-mails and see when that was. >> okay. >> did you want to come back up? [ inaudible ] >> sure. why don't we have you guys come up.

this isn't public comment yet. >> sure. hi. i'm leah perry. i am the closing manager of halcyon. thank you for the opportunity to come and be heard today. i read all thousand pages of the request for documents. i read every single page and it was a nightmare. i think that the reason we're here today is mostly because of kelly's complaints and the way that she feels about 11th street in general. i worked right next door at audio which is where i first came in contact with her. she complained there as well. in my personal experience with her, if you'll listen to her, she will continue and go forward with complaining more and more and trying to get that attention from you. i managed -- the manager of

audio passed her off to me because he couldn't take it anymore. there were a few passages between max and kelly where he basically put his foot down, like i won't deal with you anymore. so i started to try and work with her where she was making complaints on nights we weren't open. just kind of rolling the dice. i'm hearing a bunch of noise. i'm going to say it's you. well, it could be next door to you. it could be somebody in their car. there's not anything we can do about that. i feel for her as a person personally. i don't want her to be sleep deprived or anything like that. but even here, you have blackout curtains on your windows. she has open windows facing our street. she won't cover them. that's because she doesn't want to. i feel like if we're doing everything that we can to abate the noise, maybe we can abated the noise inside of her apartment, too. hanging up a curtain which we would provide would make a

difference in the sound she feels in her home, in my personal opinion. she harasses our staff and will even come downstairs in her bathrobe and mess with our customers, freak out my staff and i've personally had interactions with her where she's yelling and stomping her feet and threatening to call the cops and telling me the cops won't come anymore. my response to that is, if the police don't want to help you, what am i supposed to do? here, take these earphones, close your windows, and relax a little bit. as a person, i want to help her, but as a representative of the venue, i can't understand why she thinks that she doesn't have to meet us in the middle. that's the purpose of this commission, as i understand it, is to have the venue and the neighbor both do whatever we cannot to harm each other. we really do want to be good neighbors. i mean, we love what we do.

yeah. the most recent interaction that we had -- she didn't come down, but on march 10th, she -- there was a -- i missed the part where she came down. i was inside. i did have a nice interaction with the police officer who came. he made it really clear that he was sad about not being the driver because he doesn't stop on 1 is 1st street anymore -- 11th street anymore because he feels the complaints are excessive. because he wasn't driving, they had to stop. he came over telling us that kelly had said we were operating illegally. i gave him a copy of our revised permit, which he thought was above and beyond. he was really cool about it. he understands that 11th street is the entertainment corridor. he and i had a nice conversation about it's unfortunate that actual crime is being committed in san francisco and they're going unanswered because he has

to placate someone who is always going to complain. i don't understand what the ideal outcome would be for her. let's say that we do get shut down. she's still going to be living on 11th street. there's still going to be nightlife going on all over the place. i feel like we offer customers who are being kicked out of bars at 2:00 a.m. and whatnot somewhere safe to go. i've been going out in san francisco for over 20 years. i've worked at a bunch of different clubs in the city. halcyon offers something really special to people. we're not all of one anybody. we are welcoming to anybody and we're safe and legal after-hours, which is hard to come by. i think those are most of the things i needed to say. >> i have two quick questions. one, do the neighbors have your phone number. >> they do. >> do they call the direct line to halcyon. >> we have given our contact information. we haven't heard anything

directly from them for a while. they prefer to -- not to be accusatory, but to collude with seam. i've read the text messages and there was weird stuff going on there, you know. i don't really understand why it's us versus them instead of like let's find a middle ground. but i got a serious us versus them vibe from reading thing things. that's unfortunate. because, again, like i don't expect her to move out. i'm a realist. but it seems like they're expecting us to somehow close up shop or for nightlife altogether to close up shop, and that's not going to happen. >> another question is, what's your standard procedure -- it sounds like you haven't heard from them any while, but if you were to get a call saying it is too loud, what do you do as a manager? >> i look into it. i don't get those calls from her anymore.

honestly, since i worked there, i haven't heard from her directly. i've spoken with her face to face when my staff has called me up because she was harassing people at the front door. i haven't gotten like a phone call or a text or anything like that. >> okay. >> i have a question for you guys. what exactly needs to happen by 4:00 a.m.? just the music stopping in all of the people out? >> the music needs to stop. the entertainment needs to stop. so like the live entertainment. sometimes people have, like, i pods that play something as people stroll out. but the live entertainment needs to end at that point. >> just for you guys to know, we stop selling tickets at 3:00 a.m. and we let the guests kind of shuffle out. as we understood it, one of the biggest complaints about 11th street was the mass exodus and people being in the street. we try and help with that. >> yeah.

it's not to say you can't be open beyond 4:00 a.m. it's just that the entertainment needs to end at that time. >> thank you very much. appreciate it. >> thank you. there's another person that is coming up? >> good evening. i'm the general manager of halcyon. halcyon may seem like another dance club in san francisco. we are a world class venue bringing top talent from around the world to our city. recognized as one of the top clubs in the world. we are a very even that generates revenue for san francisco, a business that functions in an area of the blighted by shuttered businesses, homelessness and crime. one of the venues that is owned and operated by women. we do not believe that we have been treated fairly or consistently by the commission and shawn. our db levels don't correspond with the laws or sensible policy. the law defines based on ex tire

noise 8dba. the readings from which we were given citations are taken from inside the venue and not at the center of our dance floor or from 4 feet beyond the property line as law states. it makes no sense to define them based on interior ratings which soundproofing would affect that and it is the exterior sound that is of concern to our neighbors. we want to be a positive and productive part of the san francisco entertainment industry and hope to be treated fairly and equitably. we want to be respected and our rights to operate a safe and licensed venue in the city are not infringed upon. >> thank you. >> i would like to touch on a few issues. i know it's getting late. i appreciate your service as the entertainment commission. i would like to say that halcyon is a good neighbor. halcyon has done a number of

things since february of last year to soundproof that building and prevent this noise from escaping. i think the initial readings we were getting have been reduced by the virtue of the fact that gina and her team have put in to making this venue less troublesome to neighbors. as far as we understand, there's primary two people complaining about halcyon. i'm not going to go into an attack on the two of them. i need to address a few issues, though. first off, tony vu was complaining about beat box and other venues in 2015 quite specifically before halcyon even existed. then halcyon came in after tony moved to the neighborhood and halcyon has become a target of mr. vu. to me, it screams this is a man who wants to increase his property values and increase the value of his unit.

there's a residential building going in with 19 units or at least that's the plan. he says profit. that's his motivation. credibility is a significant issue when people are complaining about things. the fact that there were no complaints of which we're aware from the end of june until october 29th, 2017, indicates that halcyon was in compliance for at least four months. i want to address a few of these other issues. it is halcyon's intent to comply with the edicts and rules laid out or said out by this commission. we want to stay in compliance and has done admirable work staying in compliance considering the amount of evidence that we have been produced that has indicated that a lock of bias on behalf of inspector or investigator burke who really should be here today to address these text messages between himself, ms. ellis, and

mr. vu. numerous text messages that you have in the packet we submitted earlier today indicate that even when halcyon was closed, both mr. vu and ms. ellis are certain that it's halcyon making these noises. they are targeting halcyon. we're not -- i want ton clear -- to be clear here. it's not the commission. it's two people who are targeting halcyon. kelly ellis, in the e-mail or the text message packet that's 31 pages in small print, she said somebody got shot outside halcyon. that didn't happen. she's complaining to shawn and noting in the record that there was somebody that got shot out in front of halcyon. there are continued misrepresentations by mr. vu and ms. ellis. they want halcyon cited. even sean burke says but halcyon is close the. there's no one in there. this is in january of 2017.

january 28th or 29th. april 11th, 2017, halcyon is closed, and tony vu and ms. ellis are certain that it's halcyon making this noise. certain the noise is coming from halcyon. that relates to a few other things. perhaps meteorologist i don't know's position on the block right in the middle of several on going concerns, perhaps the noise or other venue, those illegal or underground venues that ms. milano referenced. the fact that the entertainment commission lacks jurisdiction over them but must account for the noise in this area and other places. i didn't bring my thesaurus with me like the representative from the supervisor's office, but i would like to talk about the definition of halcyon, how it relates to the things that you've heard. most of these clubs shut down 1:30, 2:00 in the morning. patrons have to have a place to

go to sober up, perhaps, perhaps to continue a conversation outside the street. halcyon provides that opportunity, and a peaceful setting. you heard ms. milano. nobody has ever been attacked notice halcyon. the police have never responded to a shooting in halcyon. there's been no events like that at halcyon, unlike some of the other venues who are not facing this kind of peril that halcyon is facing right now. i would also like to address something that you just heard, and that is that a number of the readings that sean burke is taking inside of halcyon aren't coming from the center of the dance floor. there's also an issue of calibration. you have before you the administrative citations and the calibration from the acting director as office. the calibrations last done on the machines that he's using expired in october of 2017. yet he's citing halcyon for

violations in december of 2017 using the -- you have this date in in front of you. that's using this uncalibrated equipment. now, halcyon is going to pay these citations. obviously, the time to appeal has expired. it gives us something to talk about here. that's the nature of the investigation and the citations issued by mr. burke as a general rule. he's taking readings all over the club, by the bar, by the speakers. he's violating the very ordinances that he is supposed to be enforcing. it's very clear the readings are supposed to come from the middle of the floor and he's not taking the readings from the middle of the floor. he's there a number of times, nothing to cite. yet there are some technical violations. those are violations and we'll deal with those appropriately. are they truly violations? even though the time to appeal has passed, the fact that this machine is not properly

calibrated lends credence to the fact these particular violations are not violations at all. i would like to answer any questions you may have. >> commissioners, questions? >> i think i would like to hear first from the other folks we have here tonight before we go into more questions. >> one question for the attorney. so if the record is set that the level is supposed to be at 116db and you can challenge where the inspector takes his reading, obviously. we're not there. he's our only source. if he's saying he's at the center of the dance floor and it is a violation, you as an attorney would have to either rebut it or pay it. right. >> you pay it or appeal it. that's correct. >> okay. so you know that would be the normal process that you would

tell your client. >> absolutely. >> okay. >> or anybody for that matter. thank you. >> i think we have a representative from the san francisco police department. if we could have you come up and let us know what you would like to present. that would be great. >> i'm the acting captain. i was asked by supervisor kim's office to do basic research regarding the location specifically the halcyon nightclub. i had my staff conduct about a 6-month audit of police reports and calls for service. i could find no police reports regarding any crimes of violence emanating from the halcyon club. in researching about four months worth of calls for service, i

find no police reports generated relevant to the halcyon nightclub. the only calls for service i could find were noise complaints. most recent noise complaint i looked at and examined by march 24th of 2018. that was at 1:30 in the morning. the officers show a disposition at 5:30 in the morning, business closed. so i have no additional information to provide to the commission. i'll entertain any questions if you have any. >> no. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> all right. i think there's neighbors here, some familiar faces. you guys can come up. i would advise if you could please limit what you have to say to 3 minutes, that would be advisable. thank you. >> good evening, commissioners. there were some things mentioned i wish i had the opportunity to address, but since my time here

is limited, i'm just going to go ahead and stick to my prepared remarks. but i would love to clear anything up if you all have questions. this is become a nightmare situation for us. whether so many aspects of this situation and the impact on my health i would love to discuss with you in detail. my time is limited so i'm going to stick to the main three things i wanted to highlight. first is lack of compliance. i was surprised to read in mr. robinson's e-mail that it remains our intent to comply with the terms and conditions of halcyon's permit because that has not happened. you'll see in a moment, ms. milano has expressed she does not intend to comply. halcyon is open after 4:00 a.m. most weekends often both on friday and saturday nights. they also frequently operate in extended hours on weeknights. the limit of 12 nights per year was exceeded in 2018 and has been met in 2018. they have been cited for operating in excess of decibel limits. they are not complying.

the second point is we asked the commission to consider enforceability. the condition of 12 nights per year as it stands is not enforceable. there's no one available to respond at those hours. there's no monitoring of operations to keep track of the number of nights that they run past 4:00 a.m. and during extended hours, there's no one available to check they are operating withi decibel limits. she has open disregard for the authority of the entertainment commission itself. i have stopped contacting ms. milano directly as she does not respond. a couple weeks ago, unable to continue dealing with loud thumping bass music filling my home, i went downstairs and spoke to her, asked what time they would be closing and asked if they could turn it down. i was informed that they would not turn it down and that they would not be closing that night. when i mentioned the permit conditions, i was surprised by their response which i had a video which i might try to play.

i'm not sure if you'll be able to hear, but there is a link included in your packets. you'll find that it directly contradicts mr. robinson's statement that they intend to comply with conditions. i'm going to see if i can -- [ playing inaudible video ] >> you can't hear, but, again, there's a link to this. the response was, i'm suing the entertainment commission. you're next. i'm suing you, too. do you have the resources to defend yourself? then she goes on to say i'm doing what is due me. i took that to mean that she does not recognize the authority of the entertainment commission. thanks. >> thank you.

>> hi. i would like to address comments made about us neighbors not having a good relationship -- >> can you introduce your name. >> i'm tony vu, a neighbor. i live next door to holy cow and i have a great relationship with lily. last year, she invited me to her nephew's birthday party. we have an agreement where for the past two years, we allow patio parties for holy cow on saturdays and sundays. we worked that out and we've been doing that the past two years. i want to go ahead and read my prepared remarks. i would like to address also public comments made by a commissioner back in november when halcyon was on the agenda. commissioner, your support for entertainment is understandable, but i kindly and respectfully ask for you to reconsider your thoughts that this is a situation caused by noise

sensitive residents. we happily live in the middle of 11th street nightlife and have good relationships with our neighbors. however, halcyon has been no other. i would like to read a summary of halcyon's violations from the director for the record which you also have a copy of. october 29th, 2016, notice of violation. operating without a permit. november 5th, 2016, administrative citation, operating without a permit. december 4th, 2016, administrative citation. operating without a permit. january 28th, 2017, administered a cite significance. february 26th, 2017, internal sound limit. may 2017 administrative citation unpaid. may 2017, administrative citation internal sound limit violation unpaid.

november 19th, 2017, administrative, internal sound limb unpaid. december 17th, 2017, administrative citation, internal sound limit unpaid. december 24th, 2017, administrative citation, internal sound limit violation unpaid. as you know in 2018, the ec is down one inspector for the entire city and enforcement has been limited and difficult to enforce. however, as a last friday, as you heard from director, 30 complaints have been reported by inspector during the hears since halcyon was last here in june of 2017. this is a small window in the situation and i'll let these facts speak for themselves. >> all right. thank you.

>> so just in closing, we just want to share that we've been working within the guidelines of this commission and closely with your staff for the past two years with no progress. for noise complaints, staff asked us to notify them, use 311, and even call the police. we've done all that. in fact, continued citations have been issued for sound limit violations. we've been dealing with this since the beginning and since last june, when we were here and you put an unenforce an conditions on halcyon. i would like you to strongly consider putting stricter conditions on halcyon's after-hours permit until substantial things are done to their roof. i'll leave it up to you on what you think is best appropriate. but for two years, we've reached our limit. we really hope that we can have some peace in the comfort of our own homes without being awakened from electronics bass coming

from halcyon. it's okay that ms. milano doesn't like us residents. we can handle oar threats and dismissal of our communications. we respect this commission. it's apparent she does not. their action is clear that they think this commission is a complete joke. as we've been patient and have done everything this commission has asked us to do, we're still dealing with a single bad actor doing whatever they please. >> all right. i think that's all the neighbors. commissioners, do you have more questions for halcyon, if anyone wants to probe a little bit more. commissioner thomas? >> yeah. i did have a question for halcyon. how many nights have you been open until 6:00 a.m. this year? >> this year, march 10th. >> that's the only might you've

been open until 6:00 a.m. this year? how far in advance do you book your shows. >> that one was booked two weeks in advance. like other shows we book further in advance. it just depends. >> in terms of meeting our entertainment commission's desire to have some documentation of which nights you're open until 6:00 a.m., i hear you saying that you can't provide 12 months of that up front. but would you be able to provide a month by month calendar, for example? >> i would be able to provide exactly what was asked of audio, one week's notice. i could -- i could on my own provide you earlier information, like if you knew for a fact that a deejay was coming in. i would say this particular deejay is going to go late. but, again, i want to point out the fact that audio is only required to tell you one week in advance of when they will be going past 6:00 a.m., at least that's what the management of

audio has told me, the owner. >> we're not here to talk about audio. we're actually here to talk about halcyon. so i'm not asking what audio can do. i'm asking what you can do. >> i'm here asking to be treated fairly and equitably and like everyone else in san francisco, specifically the neighbors on my block. what you have just said is that you want to treat me unfairly and not equitably. >> we're simply asking what you can provide us. we're not putting a condition on you yet. you are actually very different businesses with very different buildings. so i think we take each license separately because there's different dynamics going on. >> let me just interject. just in regard to audio's conditions, i believe it's a monthly calendar of events that the condition states. >> david told me he tells you a week in advance. >> i believe he gives me a monthly. >> we could give you a monthly

calendar saying these are the dates we intend to go until 6:00 a.m. >> i have a question. is it really -- i mean, one week is fine, but i think it's a matter of counting. is it more of a counting issue, not really who the deejay is going to be. whether you tell us you're going to be open a week in advance or a day you're going to open, you're counting down from 12. >> absolutely correct. >> that's what we're looking at. >> as of now to be clear, since june, when you conditioned me that way, i have far less until next june, i have quite a few banked. >> and that's what we want. again, it's documentation. >> uh-huh. >> so if you don't tell us, we don't know. if you're saying that you're open, you know, how are we going to rebut. >> understood. >> i have a question. >> commissioner perez. >> how would you decide when you're going to use the other dates? is are you going to do it by

holidays? or do you have sanely? seasonally. >> we are generally only open on friday and start nights. -- start nights. i think that's important. we operate fridays and saturdays many we have the odd thursday that we will open. we used to do sunday three day programming that would go into 4:00, 6:00 in the morning. we've actually changed our sunday programming to be from 6:00 p.m. to midnight in order to not create one additional night of late night music. so, for example, on 3 day weekends coming up, memorial day and so on, we have attempted to program 6:00 p.m. to midnight programming as opposed to 10:00 p.m. to late night programming. thursday nights, we've been very aware of being -- obviously we don't use the thursday night programming for 6:00 a.m. event. we're only doing it on fridays and saturdays.

generally, it does tend to be saturdays. that's what the deejays like to play the longer sets like to play. in terms of the -- just to go back to the booking, again, there were certain when we book them, we know this is a deejay who likes to play a long set. this is someone we're diagnose o use a long set for. >> you don't think in advance like 12 after-hours that you have, you don't think of it as when you begin the year? you're going to do it deejays are coming up. >> that's the way the booking program works. a lot of deejays who'll book, it's contracted they only play two hours or it's contracted they'll only play three hours or four hours. some are not contracted that way. a booking calendar doesn't -- if you look at my calendar, some people i do have booked out in november or july or whatever. i would say right now, we're booked up there may with the exception of two days we're trying to fill through june with

the exception of two days we're trying to fill. so it's not like i can look at the calendar in a year and say october 29th i'm going to book a deejay that's going to play late. that's not the way talent bookings in a high -- these talents are very high demand. it doesn't work in a way that i can give you a calendar and say these are the dates i'm going to be open late. does that make sense. >> i just wanted to ask a clarifying question. into n. these pages of text messages, were you included with the inspector and the neighbors? >> i was not. as a matter of fact, there was a time when i was included in text messages. but sean burke specifically tells the neighbors in the text message not to include me in the text messages. so for any complaints, we thought we were absolutely complaint free since june, which i think we were up until

october, and we didn't even know we were getting complaints that the neighbors were starting to be concerned about noise. we were not on that trail and sean burke told the them not to include me. i thought that was unusual. we have concern about how suddenly in october of 2000 -- october 29th was the date. we became on the neighbor's radar again. i personally believe -- and my team believes -- that they found out there was this potential 19 unit residential building going in behind me, and they said, let's ramp up our efforts. and tony vu says in one text that he has got energy to ramp up his efforts. i think i mentioned in a past hearing that i feel seen e-mails and text messages who reside in the same buildings as these two, where they've sent them saying we need to ramp up our efforts of complaints. another thing i want to mention

that there is a gentleman who lives -- it's george. there was a gentleman who lives -- i shouldn't mention george's name. there's a gentleman who lives in kelly ellis' building who faces halcyon. kelly has two small windows facing halcyon. he has huge windows, two floors of huge windows facing halcyon. he was in the club on march 10th. i told him that i wassing having issues again with kelly and tony, and he said are you kidding me? he said he has a 2-year-old baby there and his pregnant wife and he said, things are so much better since you opened. we're never disturbed by you guys. unfortunately, he doesn't want to come speak because he's fearful of retaliation from people who live in his building. that's a fact. >> well, according to the text message chain that we have, i know it's a very long document, there was definitely some reports to shawn about complaints that sounded like they didn't come to you.

so we haven't done the detective work to sort of match updates and when you're open and looking at your calendar and all that. that's a lot of work for us to do up here, for you to do to try to figure out, and for our staff. so i think that's why i keep going back to this idea of like, how can we cooperate and make you guys work together. >> sure. >> and how can we entrust that if we say do something, you'll do it or don't do something, you won't do it. we're not there yet. i think we would like to get closer to that by trying to get a handle on this calendar situation. >> sure. >> you're telling us, you know, you've only done -- i think you said you've done three since june 2017. but according to some of these neighbor reports, they're saying they hear stuff at 8:00 a.m. >> i went through each one of the text messages and the one that they said 8:00 a.m. was september 25th. i don't have it in here.

they did complain about sound at 8:00 a.m. it was the street fair. it was september 25th. it was the street fair when we opened at that time. right? so, again, excuse me -- for folsom street fair. >> i don't want to pick on any one instance because we can unpack that if we had more time. it goes back to the spirit of can we trust that if we say you can't go past a certain db level, you won't. if we say you can't operate certain number of times a year, that you won't. because right now, you're really testing that boundary and actually going past saying you don't agree with it. i don't think that's going to work for us. i would like to actually have us entertain this condition that we get a clear calendar from you all for our commissioners to think about that. i don't know if there's additional topics that we want to cover. i think we don't have,

unfortunately, our sound inspector here to be able to help kind of give us a little bit more perspective on his experience. so i don't want to meddle too much with the sound limit at this point. i do expect that you stay at 116 and that, you know, that is abided by because that is essentially the code in your condition. commissioner lee. >> times when your deejay wants to go over and i know it's hard to cut them off, but have you ever thought about you just lost one credit of extended hours because you have 12. right? and so let's say they go to 4:30. you just lost one of your 12 -- >> understood. they never go to 4:30. as i've said, it's a few minutes. we do understand now that you're saying that it's not 4:05 or

4:04. it's 4:00 a.m. so we understand that. thank you for clarifying that. >> i mean, that's really, you know -- i think it should be clear. obviously, if they go over so many times, you can't have extended hours. >> understood. >> commissioner. >> i do have some thoughts on this. there probably are questions in here. i think there's a serious problem here. i think we need to address it as a commission. i think we need everybody to contribute to addressing this. clearly, there's a small group of neighbors in the neighborhood that count for a large amount of complaints. that's just a fact. it's not a qualitative. it's a quantitative truth. our issues that we have to respond to those complaints. they understand that. we're the entertainment commission. it's primarily complaint driven here. if people get together for whatever reason and you have

your perspective and they have their perspective on that, we have to respond. so what happens after we respond to something? it's totally understanding that neighbors and venues don't have mutual trust of one another. we see that all the time. it's our job to mitigate that and create situations we wok together. it's less common from my limited experience here to see the entertainment commission and the department and venue have a really limited amount of trust. and to me, it's coming down to trust right here. we have our perspective and you have your perspective. i could hear your perspective that you feel like the calibration is not up to date. so we might not be able to trust the results. that you are set at an unfair level compared to your neighbors and you're getting unnecessary attention that you don't think is the same as other people's. then from our perspective, there's really kind of quantitative trust violations.

4:00 a.m., everything is over. you can say you didn't really know that. we're pretty clear. it's 4:00 a.m. music off. that's it. it's not up for interpretation. you know, the not paying citations is clearly a sign of a lack of trust from our side. going over your limit and continuing to get citations, even if you think that they're unfair, but going over them to us, citations is -- that's bad from our perspective. we need to do something about it. our hands are tied. then the little things like kind of choosing not to provide a calendar, which you don't have to by law and by what we said. that's not your responsibility. but if we had mute all trust, it might be something that you just provided to us just in the spirit of working better together. right? so i would like to entertain the calendar thing. the question is, we have this issue. it's serious. it's not going to go away.

we're all clear on that. this is going to keep coming up. what do we do at this point? how do we solve this? so i -- you may not like it, but what i think -- this is my opinion -- we're all you've got right now. this is it. this group is all you have between you and suspension of license, et cetera, et cetera. you may not want to work with us and you may feel strongly that you shouldn't out of principle or it's unfair or for whatever reason. but, you know, i can attest that this is a group of integrity and people are acting in good faith here and we're all you have. it's maybe i am perfect in your mind, but this is the process that it is. what i'm hoping is that we can build a trust going forward and bring you into full compliance. in that case, if complaints continue but if you're in compliance, our hands are tied. we enforce the code. if there's no citations and violations, there's not much else we can do after that point. we've done our job.

right? and just for the record, to take text messages and print them out and then say what people were thinking based on that, i do not think that's a very accurate means of communication. just for example, if you took the text messages that my wife and i send each other on a daily basis, you would think we had very strong bias against each other. but in context, it makes sense. i just want to make sure we're not reading too much into an inspector's job whose job it is to deal with differing opinions at all times in a diplomatic fashion. i don't want to make that out of context. so what i'm hoping -- first of all, i'm hoping that we can come up with something for the 6:00 a.m. i'm also hoping that we can -- with counsel, if that makes you feel more comfortable a, it's totally understandable. we can start to build a rapport and bring trust into this relationship because the other alternative, the only other alternative is punitive and probably, in your mind,

draconian. so that's my plea for you. >> thank you. i appreciate you saying that. >> all right. any other questions from commissioners or statements you would like to make? >> i guess just to -- one, it sounds like your lawyer's recommending that you pay the citations. so i'm hoping that we'll be able to get those paid. it sounds like we're all clear that, you know, 4:00 a.m. limit is a 4:00 a.m. limit and the same, a 6:00 a.m. limit is a 6:00 a.m. limit. i think i understand that you think the current decibel limit is not fair and you've been treat the unfairly in this process, but at the same time, that is what it is and it went

through the same process that most of these do. so part of what we need from you and from the club is to stick to that and not get anymore citations and going to the -- you know, the commissioner's comments about building trust, it's a lot easier for us if there are complaints from neighbors but you're operating under your decibel level, then there's -- you know, that's, i think, easier for you. that doesn't, you know -- there's no cause for citation, et cetera. it's easier for us to defend you against neighbors who are complaining about noise if you're actually operating within the legal limits. when you're not operating within the legal limits, whether that's on time or decibel, there's no way for us to defend you because you're not playing within the rules.

right? and so just additionally, i think sort of assigning motivations especially bad faith motivations to people is not -- it's not a good look. it makes you not come across as operating in good faith and all of this. we're trying to come to conclusions and come up with something that will work for everyone. that's our responsibility. we're here to try to promote and protect the entertainment industry, but we're here to ensure good relationships between the entertainment industry and the neighbors. [ stand by ] >> i think if a commissioner and someone could second it, could move to amend the conditions, specifically so that we can make

the condition on the 6:00 a.m. enforceable by getting a calendar. it's pretty standard procedure for us to ask for it one month in advance. i think also the police generally want it as well, not just our office. so someone would like to make that motion. i think there's other things contested here, like mr. robinson brought up the calibration o of our sound meter and the way we do testing. that we should hold for another day and not even focus just on halcyon for it because we want to be able to have the right method. i think our staff is actually coming up with a document to solidify the procedures around how we do that. so that can be really clear and transparent for you, halcyon, but all the other licensees out

there. >> can i ask a point of clarification. >> yes. >> the 4:00 a.m. close is really the stop of the entertainment. so i just want to clarify with the neighbors who are here. they can still open as a business just the entertainment needs to stop? that means the patrons might exit after 4:00 a.m. which means there's going to be noise on the street. but the entertainment needs to stop at 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. with the other one, with the expended permit? i want to make sure we're talking the same language. just stopping entertainment at 4:00. >> so i want to pick up on that, too. if by chance it goes beyond that, 15 minutes, you know, 2 minutes i don't think is -- and we realize it's going on past 4:00, then you should call the commission on monday and say, look. we went over. so we have to --

>> understood. >> take one away, maggie. at least, you know, you're showing above board that you're cooperating. >> understood. >> i would just express like a very strong sensitivity to the next 12 months of halcyon. i think because there's a lot on both sides to process that we're willing to try to sew up this process, but citations and violations, no matter how unjust you think they are from our perspective, are the same thing, which is really bad and will then lead to further issues for you guys. i just want to stress the importance of behaving as above board as humanly possible so that he we don't have a situation we're feeling compelled to act in the near future. >> all right. i think you can have a seat.

we will open this up for public comment. i think i just let the neighbors speak. but they've already spoken. there's no one else in here to give public comment. let's move this item, commissioners. so if someone would like to concoct a motion to amend the conditions on halcyon's permit; i'm happy to hear them. >> i would like to put forth a motion to amend the permit to require notification at least one month in advance of any after-hours activity after the time of -- what time? 4:00 a.m. >> i think just providing a calendar of events for the following month is probably appropriate which would show us the times. >> i would like to amend to

halcyon's permit to require a calendar of events one month in advance, given to the director. >> great. >> just to make sure we mean it's clearly indicating which ones will be after-hours. >> yep. >> is that a motion? >> that's your motion. >> that's a motion. >> what happens if she gets a last minute deejay and the calendar went out already? >> how does that work with other venues. >> honestly, at the staff level, we do have permits that require a monthly calendar of events, but if something comes up, as we do know things get booked late, let us know. i'll add it to your tally. >> i think it's helpful to codify that. >> the other thing you could condition on because i always recommend it to operators is that they also notify neighbors

of this calendar. they could also notify sfpd. >> so we want to revise the conditions of the permit to include a calendar of events given to the director one month in advance in the case that an event is booked outside of one month, we expect them to contact the director to let her know and we also expect them to provide the calendar of events to the neighbors. and police department. maybe we can provide it somewhere that it's accessible to the neighbors. >> any neighbors that express interest, they can provide this in a newsletter format. that'[ inaudible speaker ]

>> we would, too. in this case, we may have to -- maybe can be available online for any interested neighbors. >> can it be up on your website. >> just an e-mail. send out an e-mail. >> i can also just forward it. whatever. i just felt like that could -- >> i just want to make sure this time it's enforceable. that's my concern. >> i think we can keep it vague and figure out what the right method is. i think the most important part is we can enforce the part. >> motion to amend the conditions to include a monthly calendar, delivered to the executive director and the neighbors at least one month in advance. in the case that it is not, we expect them to notify the executive director and the

police. >> great. all right. is there a second? >> i second. >> all right. let's take a vote. >> do we have a discussion on this now? >> we can discuss it. yes. >> listening to what just got said to us, she has no regards for this commission, the neighbors. everybody is out to get her. it's got nothing to do with following the rules that we've set forth. so i don't really think anybody specifically is out to get her. but i do think we have to keep that club in our radar. not to, you know, go after any certain person, but if we have somebody who was going to flaunt it, who is going to come and tell us that she's not paying the citation, that she's not going to stay in the decibel levels, that she's not going to work with the neighbors, you know, it's ridiculous.

we can't have that come up here. the only thing that we can decide tonight is what the motion is. i totally agree with that. if this operator was wanting to work with us -- and i understand that the thing about trying to give it 12 months out, but if the operators wanted to work with us, they would have said, we'll give you a heads up when we know. but this was like a shotgun approach, throw everything at us from all different angles, complain about everything. you don't take personal responsibility for what her organization or what her business does in that area. that's something that we definitely have to keep an eye on, i believe. then the other thing, which i would like to know is, we don't have -- if it's true, there are