please place the card in the basket to the right of the leg turn. lek turn. they will be called in the order placed in the basket. there is a sign in sheet at the front of the table. please show the office of small business slide. >> welcome. it is our custom to begin and end each meeting with a reminder that the office of small business is the only place to start a new business here in san francisco. the best place to get answers to your questions about doing business in san francisco. the office of small business should be your first stop when you have questions about what to do next. find us online or in person at

city hall, and best of all, our services are flee of charge. -- free of charge. it is the official forum to voice opinions and concerns about policies that affect the economic vitality of small businesses in san francisco. if you need assistance with small business matters, start here at the office of small business. thank you. item one. call to order and roll call. (roll call). kathleen dooley is absent. (roll call). >> mr. president you have a quorum. >> thank you. next item. >> genpublic comment. allows members of the public to comment on matters within the

small business jurisdiction but not on today's calendar and items for future consideration. discussion item. >> any members of the public to comment on any items not on today's agenda? seeing none. public comment is closed. >> item three. u.s. file 180482. permit review procedures and zoning controls. neighborhood commercial districts 4 and 11. ordinance amending the planning code to create a two year pilot program removing public notice and planning commission review for certain district es4 and 11. modifying zoning controls for certain uses in districts 4 and 11. discussion and action item.

presenter is menaka mohan. >> one-time i had to present when she was here. that was confusing. good afternoon. i am mennaca mohan a legislative aid for katie tang. thank you for hearing our legislation to attract small businesses. we are happy to partner with the supervisor's office to attract small businesses. your commission knows better than everyone opening a small business is long and confusing. this peeps piece of legislation addresses the change of use notification. given it is a confusing process, i thought i would walk through an example on the commercial

district. right now, let's say a business owner wanted to open a restaurant in a space that used to be a clothing store or retail. under the zoning table we know the owner could look to see the restaurant are a permitted use with a p that is great. what the owner may not know they would have to do a 30-day notification for the change of use. they cannot open the shop until that process is completed. the change of use process is in planning code section 312. notices are mailed to people within 150 peopl 150 feet of th. notification period is 30-days. they can say they may not want the restaurant and appeal to the planning commission for a discretionary review hearing. that could add up to nine months to the process creating

uncertainty. in the 10 years katie has been in the office for district 4 she has never seen a dr application for commercial use. let's say you are a business owner on terrible street and wanted to open up a bar. a bar is a cannot use on terrible use it has a c. we are not changing anything about the process. we are removing the change of use particularly for restaurants who want to convert -- retail who want to convert to restaurants. condition use authorizations require planning commission hearing. when a business owner is looking at the zoning table and see the c, they know they have t to go o the planning commission. there is uncertainty. they know they are not a permitted use. condition use is mailed out to 310 feet tenants and property

owners and 20 day notification with the planning commission. if the business qualifies for a special program, they are guaranteed a commission hearing date in 90 days. just to reiterate the point, uses that currently require condition use in district 4 are not changing under this legislation. formula retail, anything related to cannabis, other uses such as bars continue to have a condition use under this. >> this is just basically general retail to general retail or general retail to restaurants? >> to restaurants, right, some jurisdictions just have category general retail. the san francisco planning code has many, many categories for general retail. this is really about saying in our district particularly

district 4 we want restaurants to come. we have gone through when small businesses call we help through permitting process and they pay rent on "the space" because they think the space is permitted they don't know they have to go through this process. they pay rent for even nine months before that process is completed. again, this is like removing the change of use process, trying to make it faster. >> also we are doing other changes to the nc districts in district 4. we will allow arts activities on the ground four. they are primarily used in the pdr districts. we would like to see it in our neighborhood commercial district. we are lining the smaller district was the rest of the district to make liquor stores

and bars condition use and message and all of district four condition use. we met with representatives of the council of district merchants on june 14th and coffee hour last friday to discuss the proposal. merchants asked we consider reports requirements to monitor how many businesses are taking advantage of the program after two years. we are working with the office of workforce development to add that to the legislation to make sure the report could be available at the end of two years. it will be considered by the planning commission on july 12th before being heard buyer the full board -- by the full board of supervisors. thank you for your time. i am here to answer your questions. >> i would like to know and it is long especially in district 4

and 11. this would include excelsior district? >> yes. >> mission, geneva, ocean? >> i believe in their commercial district. >> good. this will speed it up. this is very good. >> commissioners? >> thank you for the presentation. clarifications. you said you are making certain businesses a condition use. does that mean they weren't prior? >> correct. liquor stores were condition use in all districts in district 4 except in nc one. we are making those condition now to match the rest of the district also. that is more intense use. >> follow up to that, as we see in some areas like after a fire in north beach, the liquors was displaced and because a lot of businesses like that have cus

being able to relocate in the same area is difficult. are there any waivers for indianapolis departments like that? >> not that we have put into this legislation. >> commissioner corby. >> thank you. my question is really active neighborhood association be notified? >> we have talked to our merchants districts on i have ig and terrible street. albert was excited about it. they have been noticed and are excited about the process. >> great. thank you. >> what about in district 11? any outreach there? >> in the meeting on june 14th, meshemesh member -- members were

supportive. >> any other commissioner questions before we go to public comment? >> seeing none, public comment. do any members of the public like to speak? come on up. >> i am with the youth art exchange located in district 11. we are very supportive of being able to have arts uses in the commercial corridor, and we are really excited to be able to bring arts programming for people of al all ages and the diverse neighborhood of the excethecommunity. >> any comment on item 3?

seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioners. any motions? >> i want to make sure we are not treating businesses of different types differently and creating harder roadblocks for certain types of businesses where this intent is to streamline. i am concerned about the tobacco and alcohol licenses that are there is no pathways for them to relocate if there is displacement because of c us. >> could that be part of this? >> it is throughout the city? >> they are. the recommendation could be taken under consideration in this particular, the legislative sponsor could consider it or it could be in the commission's response to the board of

supervisors as an additional consideration for the full board to consider not with this legislation but as an item to deal with around displacement for business business that have cus and maybe it is another piece of legislation. >> yes, i agree with the historic place. >> you don't have to make it part of your motion to take action on this, but you can direct me to add a comment at the end of the commission's action around the need for the city to take consideration for businesses that have been displaced by either fire or things like that. >> the nc1 is a city wide zoning district. this only apply to nc1 in

district four. it allows liquor stores on the ground four? >> and 11. >> i don't believe 11 has nc1. >> i want to comment while we might do a separate recommendation regarding relocation i would not want to complicate this. that is a totally different issue. let's not wrap it around whether or not you can have liquor stores relocating because they are displaced in their own district. that is all. >> do we have a motion? >> i will move to support this. >> second? >> second. motion by commissioner riley, second by commissioner dwight. roll call. (roll call).

motion passes 5-0 with two absent. >> thank you. next item please. item 4. bos time 180519. environment code. food service waste reduction to prohibit the sale or use in the city of single use food service made with chemicals and certain items made with plastic, requiring that food service wear accessories be provided only on request or self-service stations. requiring reusable beverage cups and removing waiver provisions, setting operative date es. >> good afternoon,

commissioners. nice to see you. i will be sharing with you some background about the plastics reduction ordinance and stakeholder engagement we have done and will continue to do. my colleagues at the dent of environment will go into more detail. we will share some of the proposed amendments we will be making based on feedback we have received. supervisor tang reduced this on may 15, 2018. we made the announcement along with our co-sponsors. we have the co-sponsorships. we decided to make the announcement with the san francisco company. if there is one thing you cannot drink without a straw it is boba. this is a brief summary of the

ordinance. it will require many drink accessories be plastic free, straws, stirrers and cocktaal sticks. it is to be certified by the plastic institute. after january 1, 2020. food wear will not have florinnated chemicals. clean streets are important in san francisco. that single use food makes up the majority of litter on the sidewalks and streets. our office worked to reduce litter up treatment. san francisco public works did not have the resources to pick up trash. our small business and property owners are responsible for sidewalks in front of their properties. we concluded a pilot program for

cigarette butt trash cans. the pilot was successful and reduced the letter full of plastic and chemicals by 60% where the ash cans were involved. we are going to reduce the litter. we are really looking forward to focusing the conversation on single use plastic also next. we believe by reducing the single use plastics we will improve the cleanliness of streets and environment. it may maconsumers think twice about using the items we use for seconds or minutes and throw away. we are working to be sure small businesses are looped into the process. we want every one to be able to be leader in the movement away from single use plastics.

we have spent the last several months speaking the small business community. we have met with the sf chamber of commerce twice. we have met with the office of small business and economic and work force development twice. we have medwith sf travel, entertainment commission and small businesses in the process leading up to and after introducing the ordinance. i reached out to the hotel council tracking this closely and sharing with their network. i smoke with many small businesses and reached out to the associations in advance of the meeting to notice them to provide input. i provided a date for the committee hearing scheduled for july 11th. this wednesday the sf environment is discussing the 10% reusable cup requirement in

the event osteproperty. we continue the dialogue to ensure the voices are heard and they have the opportunity to weigh in on the legislation. sf environment has a rigorous outreach process. i will let them share more about the outreach in response to the concern that small businesses bear the brunt of educating our businesses. we presented at the youth commission and they recommended supporting the ordinance. i scheduled it for july 11th. the date and time are tentative. i will keep everyone appraised. after my colleagues present we will share some proposed amendments with you all which i can provide a hard copy. i will leave it to peter from sf environment to start the presentation.

>> thank you, welcome. i am jack macy with the department of environment. i am going to give you an overview. i would like to start off with the picture from june national geographic, a sign of the times of the profusion of plastic debris going to the ocean at 9 million-tons a area. at the rate we are going it will be more plastic than fish by 2050. this is an out-of-control problem, and one of ways to deal with it is to reduce the use of single use plastic. this single use plastic food wear we find increasingly as litter on the streets, particularly beverage straws,

and we are also seeing a lot of it ending up on the beaches and going to the bay and the ocean. plastic straws in particular have been found on beach cleanups in california to be in the top 10 pieces of litter on the beaches, ocean conserve see finds number 5. it is a growing problem. there have been studies done that show that two-thirds of the litter flows to the bay are from food and beverage packaging. what we deal with here is a key component of that with straws and other accessories. they say what is the problem if we recycle. we recycle more plastics than just about any jurisdiction when you look at straws and stirrers

they are too small for even the most advance sorting facility to pull them out. they fall through the cracks and end up as waste in the landfill. this ordinance is about helping to address a growing problem on our streets as litter as well as reducing the impact on environment and providing an environmentally friendly and improved dining experience we found by making basic changes. as you heard ashley touch on, there are five key things this ordinance does. calls for plastic-free straws, stirirs. picks, cocktail sticks and compostable plastic which has a letter problem. these would be made available upon customer request only. that includes self serve.

the idea being not to have a bunch of stuff handed to every customer because they often don't want it all. third, the stuff in the green bins for composting is fully compostable. we want third party certification apply to everything including fiber products going to composting. this will help us phase out a problematic toxic compound chemicals used to create water and degrees barrier on food. that would ensure they will not be included in the compostable food wear. fourth, we want to have events to start using reusable cups for 10% of the attendees thanks is a small step to encourage cup

reuse. fifth, the option to at some post consumer recycled content to close the loop, drive markets on some food wear. that would be done in the future. 2020. just to elaborate, basically, we are talking about plastic straws and stir sticks, toothpicks. we want them to be plastic free, and that includes compostable plastic. it is still a plastic. there are a lot of alternatives. we encourage reuse as we talk about reduce, reuse, recycle. here we have samples of increasingly popular metal straws people can carry with them. they are a good gift. i heard ashley giving them as a gift to family, and there is bamboo, stainless steel.

what you might see more commonly used in terms every placing plastic is the use of paper straws for the we are going to go single use. there is a variety of paper straw product on the market. when we talk about stir sticks, cocktail stirrers, picks and so forth. there is wood, bamboo and a picture here of one of our local restaurants using pasta stirrers. basically, uncooked noodle which works for a few minutes to stir things. the other piece of this we are going plastic free then on straws, stir sticks and those accessories. then we say those and other food wear that you see in the picture

here would be upon customer request. in the case of a cup lid and utensils, they can continue to be plastic as they are now, but we want them to be on request. we find that when we are on request, there is experience that shows a significant reduction in the use. self serve would be the most common way that on request would work. otherwise you are asking do you want your straw or whatever? this is an example of a business. we have quite a few businesses that switched to self-serve. then i mentioned about the third-party certification. this is a well established organization around for a long time doing certification that ensures that scientific standards of compost ability

have been met. thethey have a website with thousands of products to access through a variety of distributors. this will help. one of the things we have done over the years is allowed certain types of pollith they lean products in composting. there are many alternatives to using compostable plastic there is no reason to put plastic into compost any more that is what the sea fiction looks like it is for large scale composting, not for backyards. when you go to the ppi world.org website you can look at the containers to see many companies, manufacturers and distributors that are providing compostable food wear. it is a way to verify a given

product as bpi certified. this will make it easier. anything in the composting needs to be found on this listin list. the problem with the chemicals in food wear, this is a toxic potential carcino. that teflon was phased out. the industry say make them shorter. they are not banned. they work well. they are more mobile in food intake and the soil and plants and they are as likely to be as carcinogenic and toxic. a number of studies have come out. they are used on 40% of food wear, the fiber products to help impart water and degrees

resistance. there are a lot of products that do not have them. we have been talking with industry for some time. there is an effort to move to and scale up alternatives. going through the third-party certification we can ensure that. that includes next year a test for fluoride compounds. another piece was the idea every usable cups. we have the event in the city that end up producing a lot of litter and disposable cups. we have seen practices by certain vendors where they are able to provide a reusable cup option. we want to encourage that. we are starting with a 10% goal. we work closely with events in the city and ways of providing

information or training them. this is another opportunity to lead and reduce the disposable cup waste. this can involve a variety of options of providing reusable cups. it can be a return system or selling cups. another thing that this ordinance does is gives us the ability to set post consumer content. some companies like starbucks, which is the biggest coffee company, they have been using 10% recyclables for their cups. not everybody can. we want to do more research around what the market can provide to help move that. that is why it gives us the option for the future. we want to basically have a

better picture of trends before we include it. if there is a lot of news around the plastics problem and a lot of businesses stepping up to the plate to reduce the use of plastics and straws, particularly, bon appetite, that does a lot of institution at food service has announced they will stop using the plastic straws. the foundation here today have worked with a good number of restaurants. i have a list of over 80 they identified that have stopped using plastic straws. a lot of them have gone to request as well. we are seeing other cities adopting policies like this from malibu to alameda, they banned

plastic straws. we are not the first in this case. we are joining the wave to take action to reduce the huge tsunami of plastics out there. probably one of the biggest questions you may have is around cost. the dig savings, potential savings is when you go on request there is a big drop. we have heard from businesses that are seeing savings in the 50 -- reduction of use of straws of 50 to 90 plus%. if you go to plastic to paper straws. paper straws are more expensive. there is quite a range out there. i see them from half a a cent.

the good news. the amount a typical food establishment spends on straws is less than 1% of their operating cost. if this portion increases but with it going on request it looks like that is going to offset that cost increase in many if not most cases. if you have a 50% reduction in use and you are paying 30 to 50% more, 50/50 is a wash. here is an example of outer lands that found a 90% reduction in their use of straws by going on request. it was a net savings for them. another example of a bar that

used a lot of straws and plastic straws and picks. they switched to paper and wood. one of the things a lot of places found was because of the plastic straws and picks that often had food on them, they couldn't compost the food. they weren't going to separate it. it was all going to the trash. by switching to wood and paper they were able to reduce their trash service. they are actually saving $900 a month, $10,000 each year. it was an impressive case study. one of the questions is what about inventory? we have had experience over the last decade or more with having helped ban styrofoam, changing

plastic bags to recycled paper and compostable plastic and ruiusable. in cases of four different ordinances we have dealt with inventory issues case-by-case. we visit the business and they say i have the inventory i bought before it was announced or before the outreach. we can look at that to say, okay, how much more time do you need? this is three or four weeks. we will come back in a month or so. we allow people to go through the inventory they have had. we don't want people to continue to buy products like this, but if they had existing inventory. the other concern is there was media attention. you may have heard all of these people switching to paper. there is a huge demand on paper straws. can the market meet that.

we have somebody selling paper straws to address that. if there is an issue to get something, a backlog supply we to take into accounted. our interest is to help people provide providing education and flexibility. a good faith effort, we have no interest in penalizing with fines. we want people to implement the ordinance with a good faith effort. there are many alteratives out there. we are likely to see with banning the styrofoam, we saw a lot of companies into the marketplace to provide alternatives. we expect this also to happen with straws. there are at least half a dozen different companies out there that are distributing in the bay area, and we expect that to

increase a lot as well. outreach education. we have a long history of doing extensive outreach education through a variety of sectors to the business community and the public. we will make sure we reach everybody that is affected, everybody would get a maling. the mailed letter would go to all affected parties, and with that letter there will be a fact sheet. we produce fact sheets, provide information on vendor and product lists, we create signage, faq. we reach everybody by mail then as many in person. we go through the corridors door-to-door. there is outreach in education to consumers. we know it is not -- a business

doesn't want to be the only one telling the customers the new rule. there is a lot of work to be done through the media, social media, and we work through various organizations, and we make sure to provide stores real clear signs that say the city is requires this, not just me as a restaurant saying i don't want to give you a plastic straw. the city says plastic free only on request. we take that to make it clear. wwe have a variety of posters to be posted. to summarize, these are the effective dates. two phases. first is just over a year from now july 1, 2019 is when the plastic free straws and accessories to be rechoired. those food wear accessories plus

napkins and condiments and cutlery on request at that time. food wear pp i certified. in january 2020 we add reusable cups in outdoor events. that season is in full swing july 1st. not to have it in midstream to give them more time to ramp-up a program. there is also the florinnated compounded in effect by january 2020. everything resetter fid by then as -- re-certified as flo fluore free. i want to close by saying we really appreciate how so many

businesses in san francisco and the bay area really help understand the issues and they have helped lead the fact that we have 80 plus restaurants that are already gone straw free in san francisco. there are examples of other businesses through rethink disposable with clean water action where they have worked to switch to reusables. by doing so they found they have been able to save money on even just the labor of handing everything out, going on request saves that. big reduction in use by going on request. they are shipping the cost for disposal service. it is part of being a good community player. sustainability message.

the guy that are straw dependent. it is an example of using the paper straws. i will stop blackering and blab. >> do you have any questions? >> before you start questions i want to see if you want us to go through the amendments to cover the questions. i printed them out if you want to share with the commission. three brief amendments one was mentioned or two. one is clarifying the compostable plastic straws would not be allowed under the ordinance. the second. this is potential. we have to have some conversations with delivery company us picking up food to

businesses and bringing them to homes but adding within definition of food vendor or food delivery services and contractors and vendors. they would provide an option for customers to request food ware accessory esat check out to say i would like utensils or napkins. changing the date to january 1 of 2020. when it is not in the event season. section that we would change that says the food vendor changed to producer. it is clear individual food vendors are not responsible but the event producer is

responsible for the 10% requirement. >> thank you. jack, thanks for a great job. great to hear it. i am a bar restaurant owner in san francisco. my main concern is the available of the products and the cost. that is what i am looking at. i use thousands of plastic cups each week along with straws, toothpicks. my question is the availability of the products and the cost. that is what i'm looking at. >> as i said, the research we have done so far the cost range varies quite a bit. some folks are buying from buy right. we had close to the cost of

plastic straws. some companies make a super premium decorative colorful striped straw that are more expensive. the key is switching to on request. that is where we see for the businesses there is not a net cost increase because the reduction in use will exceed th increased cost. if it doesn't, then i think the cost is how much do you spend on plastic straws, stirrer sticks as a percent of your operating cost? how does it add up on the bottom line? that is why i think. some places said stop using straws period. on request is a key piece to it. in terms of inventory, we have

seen industry moving to reach the increased demand. there is a backlog in delivery. here is a letter from so and so the backlog. we can't help you find something that can deliver an acceptable alternative, you need that time. >> thank you for your presentations. i am curious if you have talked directly to a list of stephen tors or a -- stephe city vendor. city departments mandate everything compostable and you are not allowed to charge for it. other vendors we charge 25-cents for napkins, cups, plates.

the city departments do not allow you to invoice that. people that are vendors with the city are losing the money while they are pending five times more. plastic forks $9 for a thousand. over 40 for compostable. there are huge expenses for stephen tors. if you are going to have an overhead you need to take that into consideration. the city should amend the rule of charges for that. there needs to be more chai clay for zero waste. that is on the books. if you cater for city hall, you have to pack out the trash with you. that is zero waste. you have to pack it out. people are caught off guard with that. if this is going to be an

additional requirement for city events, there needs to be clarity on whose responsibility it is for what. i did have another question. i will come back to it. >> thank you for your comments. i think you make very astute points if we make those requirements. we will look into that and provide some response to regimena. >> a lot of what i am reading implies that there is staff on hand for these vendors, too. a lot of time the vendors are dropping off things and leaving. they are knothey are not staffe. don't assume all vendors will have staff on hand.

>> any other comments before we go to open public comment? any members of the public that i would like to speak on item 4? come on up. >> i am eva, a volunteer. i lead a campaign called rise above plastics. i have been volunteering for about six years. we are highly in support of this and excited to see it happening. we have been doing outreach with bars and restaurants for four years asking to switch to paper straws on request and have had a lot of success. we want to celebrate this move and to help it be as easy as

possible for bars and restaurants. using the restaurants we worked with. we have more than 80 people willing to talk to a bar or restaurant making the switch to talk about how it can be easily accessible. we have bars with no straws, we have creative solutions. with sf environment we will be extremely available to do outreach in the city. we classically just do beach cleanouts. that is the top 10 list on the beach. recently we branched out to inner city cleanup and the first neighborhood cleanup on june 2 in north beach. this is a carbon copy what we

would find on the beach. we find on it the city streets as well. all of the items we find on the beach are also on the city streets. obviously, almost all of what we are finding is single use to go ware. mostly plastic. we are going to recreate this neighborhood by neighborhood and offering that information saying this is not only coastal this. is inner city affecting your business. if it is ugly and you see the trash. this legislation will provide support to businesses as well as the community to get streets clean. it all goes to the beach. we look forward to the day when we don't find the plastic straw on the beach. it looks like a year until that happen as. >> next speaker, please.

>> i am the policy director for upstream. i moved to upstream about a year ago. prior too that i was the california director of clean water action where i started the program that jack mentioned. we found reduced the single use packaging businesses save money. every food business saves money this. is a good thing for business. often businesses don't really understand how much money they are spending, all these little single use items. upstream supports this policy. it is a good first step to reduce the food and beverage packagings which has so many

environmental impacts. much like eva's stats we found in you a survey in 2011 the food and beverage packaging is 67% of the litter on the street es. seven of th the 7 of the top 10 items picked up each year. a huge impact associated with extraction of natural gas, greenhouse gas emissions from the products and paper products also have a significant greenhouse gas food print resulting in cutting down more trees. while we support drilling the plastics. we think the higher goal is drill down on single use food and beverage packaging. this moves in that direction because of the ask first policy.

it doesn't just switch. it reduces how much food and beverage packaging is used. the 10% reusable cups is a source reduction measure. it doesn't change the material it reduces how much we are consuming. that is all good. a very important additional reason to support this policy is the ban on chloride substances in compostable food wear. this is a toxic class of clinicals. thethey can represent up to 80%f the weight of the package. we encourage moving the policy forward and encouraged the city to look further to reducing cups and food containers and associated food wear items that

we see out in the ocean and on our streets. thank you. >> any other speakers? come on up? >> i am with an organization called lonely whale. we began two and-a-half years ago our founder is adrian who is an actor. we had straw less ocean. we analyzed media over three years running the campaign. there ask extreme interest in reducing the straws in cities nationally. no one had organized the effort. we went to the city of seattle and rap the campaign -- ran the

campaign to remove 2.3 million pieces of plastic by working with over 150 venues, including the airport, space needle, and it was so popular in the city that the city of seattle approached our team. we created a culture. we asked that they announce the single use plastic straw ban at our press conference. it was really fin and really effective we see this trend all over the world from london to new york where they had a hearing last week. they are pushing that in new york city to chicago, new mexico, oakland, san francisco. this city is the first to push the effort.

-- being looked at, being proposed, etc. right now, other than the city. so it's unique in that. and i think there's a real leadership position that can be taken to that effect, if you

decide to put yourself there. thank you. >> president adams: thank you. any other members of the public. >> my name is jamie and i've worked with two dozen restaurants within the city and so many is very important to me. to get surf rider and get things checked off. we initially bought some paper because there was a promotion to see how it's went. we just eliminated straws entirely. we don't have them at all. we have a diverse clientele, people from all over the world,

businessmen from across the street. there's been zero pushback. when you have a customer ask, you say, it goes into the bay. we have the advantage of there being a bay right there. financially, it's been fantastic and supported with zero pushback. i have a bar as well and they use all metal. they find it sexier. they don't like paper, don't want plastic. very successful. there's some theft because they really like them and they disappear. so it may be good to have them for sale. another restaurant of mine uses paper. and between the three of them, it's a bar, high-end mexican restaurant, and right on the water, there's been zero

pushback, no issues, and it's moving everybody away from having a straw. our tenders tells me there are two reasons. one, women like them with red wine because they don't want to get their teeth -- it seems odd, but a bartender told me that. and then the other one was having something for handicapped people. i have a friend who is a quadriplegic and she has to have a straw. most people with disabilities have a tendency to bring their own straws. i can just say it's been a financial savings and widely accepted by the public. >> president adams: great. thank you. any other members of the public? >> hello. i'm jamie lions. thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. i'm a small business owner here. i own a company called ecopliant products. i