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 --

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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. >> 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